Who does the government count as 'employed'?

Are members of the military in or out of the monthly jobs report?

The latest government report on employment can be counted on to raise questions with Answer Desk readers about just who is officially considered employed and who isn't. Mary in Kansas City is wondering if people whose unemployment benefits run out are counted. And Tony in New Jersey is wondering where military workers fit in.

Is the figure used for total unemployment derived from the various states' statistics regarding the number of people who are receiving unemployment compensation? If so, is there an adjustment to that figure to include people who have been unemployed so long that their unemployment benefits have run out?
-- Mary, Kansas City, Mo.

The data are not collected from unemployment claims. The Labor Department conducts two separate surveys — one in which they call workers directly and the other in which they collect information from employers on employment, hours and earnings. That sample includes about 160,000 businesses and government agencies at 400,000 separate workplaces.

So while you may quibble with the government’s data definitions, it’s pretty clear how they go about collecting the numbers. And while they have recently become the subject of much political spin, the numbers aren’t supposed to be a straw poll on the success of the government’s economic policies. They’re intended for use by economists, analysts and forecasters to track changes in labor status over time.