This statistic displays the seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate in the United States on a monthly basis. Seasonal adjustment is a statistical method of removing the seasonal component of a time series that is used when analyzing non-seasonal trends. National unemployment was at 3.8 percent in May 2018.
U.S. monthly unemployment rate
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics - the principle fact-finding agency for the U.S. Federal Government in labor economics and statistics - unemployment declined from 2010 to 2017. A trend of decreasing unemployment followed after a high in 2010 resulting from the 2008 financial crisis. Unemployment fell from 9.6 percent in 2010 to 4.4 percent in 2017.
Additional statistics from the BLS paint an interesting picture of unemployment in the United States. In December 2017, the state with the highest (seasonally adjusted) unemployment rate was Alaska with a 7.3 percent unemployment rate, followed by District of Columbia and New Mexico. Unemployment was the lowest in Hawaii at 2.0 percent. Workers in the agriculture and related industries suffered the highest unemployment rate of any industry at 9.6 percent as of February 2018 (not seasonally adjusted), followed by workers in the construction industry with a rate of 7.8 percent.
