Jobs — PolicyEngine Macro

01 — where it stands

The numbers, as the snapshot stores them.

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE

4.1%

stored as 4.1 · percent, seasonally adjusted

Observation: 2026-07
Vintage: 2026-08-10
Source: FRED · UNRATE

NONFARM PAYROLL EMPLOYMENT

158.9m

stored as 158,858.0 · thousands of persons, seasonally adjusted

Observation: 2026-07
Vintage: 2026-08-10
Source: FRED · PAYEMS

NONFARM PAYROLL EMPLOYMENT · YEAR ON YEAR

+0.2%

derived here, not stored: 158,858.0 in 2026-07 against 158,542.0 in 2025-07 · thousands of persons, seasonally adjusted

Observation: 2026-07
Vintage: 2026-08-10
Source: FRED · PAYEMS

The unemployment rate is published as a rate and is shown as stored. Payroll employment is a level in thousands of persons: the headline reads it in millions and the year-on-year card is derived from the stored levels, neither of which is a transformation the publisher applied.

How those readings have moved, derived from the same stored observations rather than typed in: Unemployment rate -0.1pp against the prior month (2026-06); Nonfarm payroll employment +0.2% against a year earlier (2025-07).

02 — what the models see

The model view, and the same breath its limits.

No model in this suite forecasts the US economy. The only member whose question types include forecast is boe-svar, and its geography is UK-only. The labor market is also where the two US models differ most from each other, and the difference is worth stating plainly:

frb-us answers economic_shock and nothing else. Its predictive validation is not_assessed — “LONGBASE is an illustrative tracking baseline, not an official Fed forecast, and no historical forecast evaluation is published here.”
us-hank answers economic_shock, and the first thing it cannot answer is forecasts (IRFs around a calibrated steady state, not a forecaster). Its predictive validation is not_applicable — “The model produces impulse responses around a calibrated steady state; it is not a forecaster and makes no predictive claims.”
frb-us does list unemployment among its outputs — but as a deviation from the conditioning baseline under a declared policy rule, not a level anyone should read as a projection.
us-hank outputs gdp, consumption, investment, inflation, real_rate. There is no labor market variable in that list at all: it reports no unemployment rate and no employment level, so on this topic it has nothing to say.
Neither model reports payroll employment, so the second series above has no model view of any kind beside it.

The unemployment path in the conditioning baseline is the one model artifact covering this topic, and it is a baseline rather than a view:

FRB/US April 2026 LONGBASE, the unemployment rate. This is the conditioning baseline that frb-us shock experiments deviate from — not a forecast, and not scored on the forecast record.
Quarter	Baseline	Status against the outturn	Uncertainty
2026Q2	4.44%	outturn already published	none — the baseline carries no interval
2026Q3	4.42%	outturn already published	none — the baseline carries no interval
2026Q4	4.40%	no outturn yet	none — the baseline carries no interval
2027Q1	4.38%	no outturn yet	none — the baseline carries no interval
2027Q2	4.35%	no outturn yet	none — the baseline carries no interval

The UK jobs topic has a satellite that maps the boe-svar GDP forecast onto the unemployment rate through a fitted Okun relation, and archives every round before the outturn exists. Nothing equivalent exists for the US, because the forecast it would map does not exist — see the UK page →

The UK page also carries vacancies and average weekly earnings as outturns. Neither has a US counterpart in this store: no JOLTS openings series and no earnings series is tracked, so this page is two series where the UK page is three.

03 — run it yourself

Every number above is a command away.

lur is the FRB/US unemployment rate, so the runnable question on this topic is what a policy or spending surprise does to it — and, through the incidence bridge, whose earnings move when it does.

pe-macro frbus-variables   # the shockable levers and their units
pe-macro frbus-shock --var rffintay_aerr --shock 1.0 --horizon 20   # unemployment response to a 1pp policy surprise
pe-macro frbus-shock-incidence --var rffintay_aerr --shock 1.0 --year 2027   # the same shock carried into household earnings, by decile

Over MCP: frbus_shock for the macro response and frbus_shock_incidence for the household overlay, which applies the wage-bill change uniformly and reports that it did. hank_shock_incidence is the same bridge for the HANK model. Connect a client →

04 — the data behind it

Source, coverage, and the immutable file.

Every value on this page is read from the vintage file linked here, not from a live call.
Series	Publisher	Coverage	Snapshots	This vintage	Next release
Unemployment rate	FRED · UNRATE	2020-01 – 2026-07	2	2026-08-10.json	not announced
Nonfarm payroll employment	FRED · PAYEMS	2020-01 – 2026-07	2	2026-08-10.json	not announced

PAYEMS is revised twice after first publication and again at the annual benchmark, and UNRATE comes from a household survey with its own sampling error; the snapshot column is the difference between a reproducible number and a moving one. FRED supplies no announced next-release date through this site's fetcher, so the column says so rather than guessing a schedule from the publisher's calendar.

The snapshot files are append-only and never edited, so a number published here can be reproduced against the data as it stood — browse the store, its release calendar, and the as-of recipe →

What is happening to US work and hiring?

The numbers, as the snapshot stores them.

The model view, and the same breath its limits.

Every number above is a command away.

Source, coverage, and the immutable file.