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[Zephyr]

Gallup US Payroll to Population
Released On 7/31/2014 8:30:00 AM For Jul, 2014
Prior Actual
level 45.0 45.1
Highlights
Gallup's July Payroll to Population employment rate was stable at 45.1 percent, maintaining gains from the first half of 2014. However, workforce participation continues to be relatively weak. The 45.1 percent of Americans employed full time for an employer in July is similar to the 45.0 percent in June and is one of the highest rates recorded since Gallup started tracking P2P in January 2010. The July P2P rate tends to be one of the higher measurements annually, but this July's rate is still higher than scores recorded in July in past years.

While P2P has been rising this year, from 42 percent in January to slightly higher than 45 percent in July, workforce participation has recently fallen to 66.5 percent, reversing recent gains and reverting to the downward trajectory seen in the past four years. Gallup defines the "workforce" as adults who are working or who are not working but actively looking for work and available for employment. Unlike Gallup's P2P rate, which is a percentage of the total population, traditional employment metrics such as the unemployment rates that Gallup and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report, are percentages of the workforce. At 66.5 percent, the U.S. workforce participation rate in July 2014 was down from 67.4 percent recorded in June and from the 67.7 percent in July 2013.

Workforce participation has been on a downward trajectory since Gallup began measuring it in 2010. This trend is broadly in line with figures that the BLS tracks, which show a similar overall reduction in the workforce over the same period. Interestingly, while the decline in workforce participation is often attributed to increasing retirement as the U.S. population ages, the downward trend is actually present within all age cohorts, and most dramatically among those who are in their prime working years.

Gallup's U.S. seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate for July was 6.4 percent, down from 6.8 percent in June marking the lowest monthly rate Gallup has measured since it first began tracking employment in January 2010. In this same month in previous years, Gallup measured unemployment rates of 7.8 percent in 2013 and 8.2 percent in 2012. Gallup's U.S. unemployment rate represents the percentage of adults in the workforce who did not have any paid work in the past seven days, for an employer or themselves, and who were actively looking for and available to work.

Gallup's measure of underemployment was 15.1 percent in July. This is down from 15.8 percent in June and from 17.3 percent in July 2013,and it is the lowest that Gallup has recorded since beginning the measurement in 2010. Gallup's U.S. underemployment rate includes adults in the workforce who are unemployed (6.4 percent) and those who are working part time but desire full-time work (8.7 percent).