U.S. Unemployment Rate Decreases Further

In March, the unemployment rate decreased by 0.2 percentage points to 4.5 percent. The overall number of unemployed declined by 326.000 to 7.2 million. The professional and business services as well as the mining sector benefited most from this development, while retail lost jobs. Looking at the major employment sectors, the decline in the unemployment rate was particularly noticeable for adult women, Whites and Hispanics while it hardly affected the rate of adult men, teenagers, Blacks and Asians.

The infographic below shows the evolution of the unemployment rate in the period from January 2007 to March 2017. The highest unemployment rate was observed in the years 2009, 2010 and 2011 as a result of the financial crisis. Since then, it has steadily declined, this year reaching almost the same level as in 2007.