Part of the information released in the Employment Situation Summary concerns how long individuals have been unemployed. Go to www.bls.gov to find the lat- est report. Use the same technique as in Problem 1 to find the Employment Situation Summary. At the end of the Employment Situation, click on the table titled "Unemployed persons by duration of unemployment." Use the seasonally adjusted numbers to answer the following questions.
a. How many workers were unemployed less than 5 weeks?
b. What percentage of all unemployed workers do these workers represent? How do these numbers compare to the previous month's data?
c. How many workers were unemployed for 27 or more weeks? What percentage of all unemployed workers do these workers represent? How do these numbers compare to the previous month's data?
d. How long has the average worker been unemployed (aver- age duration, in weeks)? How does this compare to the average for the previous month's data?
e. Comparing the latest month for which there are data with the previous month, has the problem of long-term unem- ployment improved or deteriorated?