An Overview of the Employment-Population Ratio

"The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) defines the employment-population ratio as the ratio of total civilian employment to the civilian noninstitutional population. Simply put, it is the portion of the population that is employed. The ratio is used primarily as a measure of job holders and to track the pace of job creation, relative to the adult population, over time.
The employment-population ratio has several properties that make it an attractive indicator for labor market analysis. It is easy to interpret and can be used to make meaningful comparisons across time and groups with dissimilar population size. Because it takes into account both the impacts of labor force participation and unemployment, it is a useful summary measure when those forces place countervailing pressures on employment. Like all labor market indicators, it has limits. For example, it does not distinguish between part-time and full-time employment, and it is silent on wages, benefits, and job conditions. Trends in the employment-population ratio also do not provide information about job flows (i.e., whether a drop in employment represents more people exiting employment or fewer new entrants).."
Employment and population

The Slow Recovery of the Labor Market

"The deep recession that began in December 2007, when the economy began to contract, and ended in June 2009, when the economy began to expand again, has had a lasting effect on the labor market. More than four and a half years after the end of the recession, employment has risen sluggishly—much more slowly than it grew, on average,during the four previous recoveries that lasted more than one year..."

Labor Maket Recovery

Job Growth During the Recovery

 "Congress in recent years passed a number of bills intended in part to jump-start a recovery in the labor market from the recession that began in December 2007. Members are interested in the labor market’s response to these measures to help them decide how well the legislation has worked and whether additional job-creation legislation may be warranted in light of the pace and composition of job growth since the recession’s end in June 2009. Accordingly, employment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is analyzed in this report from December 2007 to September 2012 (the latest month for which data were available at the time of the report’s preparation)..."
Job Growth During the Recovery

The Veteran Labor Force in the Recovery

"Veterans are an honored part of the United States labor market. In this report, veterans are defined as men and women who served on active duty in the U.S. Armed Forces and were civilians at the time of their participation in the Current Population Survey (CPS).1 In 2010, there were 11.8 million veterans working or looking for work, accounting for 7.7 percent of the U.S. labor force. Veterans are a broad population spanning from those who served in World War II (WWII) to recent veterans who were on active duty during the post-9/11 period known as Gulf War-era II.2 Although most veterans are men, women are a growing part of the veteran population, accounting for 8.1 percent of all veterans in 2010..."