(ECONOMICS) Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor
force, plus total employed part
time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor
force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force. Put another way, U-6 = U-3 (headline unemployment) + discouraged workers + part-
time workers in need of full-
time jobs.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics regularly publishes six estimates of unemployment. The others are U-1, U-2, U-3, U-4, and U-5. Eurostat publishes
one monthly estimate of unemployment for the European Union, which is approximately midway between U-3 and U-4.
The unemployment statistics for the USA are collected through a monthly Current Population Survey (CPS) (also known as the household survey) and an establishment survey.
U-6 is often referred to as "
real unemployment" because it attempts to measure the total number of people who would like to have more
work than they do have. Some have argued that U-6 is closer to historic measures of unemployment than U-3 is (we didn't have either during the Great
Depression).