From my US and Economics blog.
The data for October 2012 – the last “big” data release before the election — are now available on the Bureau of Labor Statistics web page and on a select basis as graphs on the St Louis Fed FRED database. Here I highlight employment to population, which avoids the “noise” that comes from people dropping in and out of the labor force. This measure also automatically adjusts to population growth (unlike overall employment measures) and, when disaggregated, is neutral to changes in the age composition of the population (e.g., the aging of the baby boomers). For brevity, I delete the age 65+ brackets; all are above their Oct 2009 level, that for age 65-69 by a full percentage point.
The data show steady improvement in the economy, though still modest for those age 16-24. As with all (un)employment data, monthly frequency data are noisy, and these data aren’t seasonally adjusted. But it’s one more picture of an ongoing recovery.
| age bracket | 16-19 | 20-24 | 25-29 | 30-34 | 35-39 | 40-44 | 45-49 | 50-54 | 55-59 | 60-64 |
| Oct 2012 | 26.5% | 61.8% | 75.0% | 76.6% | 77.5% | 78.4% | 77.6% | 74.3% | 69.2% | 52.7% |
| 12 month average | 26.0% | 61.4% | 73.6% | 75.5% | 76.5% | 77.5% | 76.6% | 73.9% | 67.9% | 51.7% |
| change vs avg | 0.5 | 0.4 | 1.4 | 1.1 | 1.0 | 0.9 | 1.0 | 0.4 | 1.3 | 1.1 |
| vs Oct 2011 | 0.2 | -0.3 | 2.1 | 1.1 | 0.8 | 1.5 | 0.8 | 0.2 | 0.5 | 1.8 |
| vs Oct 2009 | 0.3 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.3 | 0.9 | 2.1 | 0.4 | -0.4 | 1 | 1.9 |
click to expand graph
Full time series, levels, Jan 1994-Oct 2012
…mike smitka…