Current Population Survey · Unemployment rates by class of worker of the last job, not seasonally adjusted
What is the US unemployment rate for each class of worker?
The month ended : of the 5 lines, the change over a year was largest for Self-employed and unpaid family workers, up 0.7 percentage points, and smallest for Agricultural wage and salary workers, down 4.1 percentage points.
Unemployment rate by class of worker, wage and salary workers, each month
- Private wage and salary workers3.93.1 to 15.6
- Government wage and salary workers1.81.2 to 9.4
- Federal government workers2.61.0 to 5.9
- Agricultural wage and salary workers2.72.7 to 13.8
Each row is one line of the page over the last ten years, one month to a point, on a scale shared by the rows of the tab, with its newest value and its range printed beside it and a dashed line at zero. A gap is a month with no value. Pointing at the chart shows the month and the value.
Observed .
Right now
Over a year to September 2026, of the 5 lines on this page the change was largest for Self-employed and unpaid family workers, up 0.7 percentage points, and smallest for Agricultural wage and salary workers, down 4.1 percentage points.
Of these lines, 1 rose, 4 fell and 0 did not change over the year (ours, from the published values).
By lineOver a year, ours
Unemployment rate by class of worker, change over a year, by line
- Wage and salary workers
- Self-employed
Each bar is the change in one line over a year, the largest first, with its rank at the left and its newest value under the figure. A line with its own page links it from its name. A change below zero runs to the left of the zero line. The colour says which section of the page a line is in.
Observed .
Unemployment rate by class of worker, change over a year in each month
| Line | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Private wage and salary workers | – | +0.2 | +0.1 | +0.1 | +0.1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | −0.1 | +0.1 | −0.1 | 0.0 | −0.2 |
| Government wage and salary workers | – | +1.1 | +0.4 | +1.2 | +0.8 | +0.6 | +0.5 | +0.4 | −0.5 | +0.1 | −0.1 | −0.6 |
| Federal government workers | – | +3.7 | +1.8 | +3.2 | +3.4 | +1.6 | +0.6 | +1.3 | −0.5 | +0.6 | −0.3 | −1.1 |
| Agricultural wage and salary workers | – | +7.7 | −1.9 | +0.7 | +0.8 | +1.7 | −1.5 | −1.9 | −3.0 | +0.2 | −1.6 | −4.1 |
| Self-employed and unpaid family workers | – | −0.8 | +0.8 | +0.1 | 0.0 | −0.3 | −0.4 | 0.0 | +0.8 | −0.7 | −0.7 | +0.7 |
Each chip is one month's change from the same month a year earlier. The mark in its middle is zero: a fill to the right of it is a rise and a fill to the left a fall. A longer, brighter fill is a larger change, in five steps up to 3.0 and over. Every chip prints its figure and sign. A dash is a month with no figure.
Observed .
Understanding unemployment by class of worker
Where it stands today
The largest change over a year was Self-employed and unpaid family workers, up 0.7 percentage points, in September 2026.
What do the lines of this page measure?
These are the unemployment rates of the classes of worker: private wage and salary workers outside agriculture, government workers, federal government workers, agricultural wage and salary workers, and the self-employed with unpaid family workers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates them each month from the Current Population Survey, a survey of households, and publishes them, not seasonally adjusted, in the Employment Situation report (table A-14).
Read more
An unemployed person is placed in the class of worker of the last job, and each rate is a share of that class's labor force: the people employed in it plus the unemployed who last worked in it. Federal government workers are a part of government workers.
What 500metrics adds: the change over a year of every line, ranked across the page; the last ten years of every line as rows of small charts; and a table of the change over a year in each of the last twelve months. Every line has a page of its own with the history since the series begins.
The numbers behind the chart
What is the latest value of each line?5 lines, in the sections of the page
| Line | Section | Month | Value | Change over a year | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Private wage and salary workers | Wage and salary workers | 3.9% | −0.2 pts | 2 | |
| Government wage and salary workers | Wage and salary workers | 1.8% | −0.6 pts | 3 | |
| Federal government workers | Wage and salary workers | 2.6% | −1.1 pts | 4 | |
| Agricultural wage and salary workers | Wage and salary workers | 2.7% | −4.1 pts | 5 | |
| Self-employed and unpaid family workers | Self-employed | 3.4% | +0.7 pts | 1 |
The table scrolls sideways; the first column stays in place.
What do these figures leave out, and how are they cited?Limits, dates and how to cite
What this number cannot tell you
- These rates are not seasonally adjusted: compare a month with the same month a year before, not with the month before. The rates move with the seasons, and BLS does not remove that movement from these series.
- Every rate comes from a survey of households, so each month's value carries sampling error, and the error is larger for a small group. BLS's technical note in the Employment Situation gives its size.
- Each rate is a share of its own class's labor force. Federal government workers are a part of the government line, and the rank of the change over a year counts both as separate lines. BLS counts people who run an incorporated business of their own as wage and salary workers, not as self-employed.
- People who have never worked are in no class of worker, so the rates do not describe the first-time job seekers.
- October 2025 has no value because BLS did not collect the survey that month; the charts show a gap there, and the change over a year for October 2026 has no value because there is no October 2025 to compare with.
- The changes and the ranks are ours, worked out from the values BLS publishes; a change is in percentage points.
Observed . Checked .
How to cite this
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey, Unemployment rates by class of worker of the last job, not seasonally adjusted, through September 2026. Compiled by 500metrics, "What is the US unemployment rate for each class of worker?", https://500metrics.com/unemployment-by-class-of-worker.
Can the data be downloaded?unemployment-by-class-of-worker.csv
Download the last ten years of every line as CSV: 600 rows, to , 43,708 bytes.
Our text and compilation: CC BY 4.0.
Page updated