The most valuable living assets in the world are people of an organization or a country. The state of being employed or occupied in a job is considered as employment. Unemployment is referred as the state of being unemployed or out of the work. Unemployment rate indicates the poor performance of a nation. Though the United States is a highly developed country, it has been facing a considerable level of unemployment. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the United States Department of Labor, the unemployment rate in the US was 9% in January 2011.

Probable Reasons for Unemployment
Unemployment in the nation may be because of the common reasons such as growth of population and competition. With increase in population, there is an increased need for individuals for employment. However, due to limited job positions, the number of unemployed persons increases.

Competition of businesses from offshore firms also may be one of the reasons for unemployment. In addition to these, seasonal and technology unemployment are also being seen in the nation. Employees involved in businesses of seasonal products are laid off when there is a completion of the particular season leading to seasonal unemployment. These constitute the common reasons which are found at any time. But economic recession in the recent period is a major cause for huge unemployment rate.

With a huge recession period in the recent years, the US faced a huge unemployment rate. Many people lost their jobs due to high inflation rates during 2009. It was thought that there had been a gradual recovery from the economic downturn situation. However, still certain level of unemployment is being seen these days in the US.

Millions of Americans are still finding it hard to find the jobs even after searching hard for an entire year. Some reasons are found to be responsible for unemployment rate these days. Fewer new openings, government sector layoffs, high taxes, and lack of real growth are some of them. After the recent financial crisis, the number of new job openings in the US has decreased to a large extent leading to a significant level of unemployment. Government sector jobs were once considered to be safe. With the continuous job cuts even in state and local government sectors, it has become difficult for people to choose government jobs.

In general it is known that the tax rate is high for businesses in the United States than any other parts of the world. After recession, it has become hard for businesses to pay such high taxes. Many of such businesses are pushed out of the nation. As a result there is also considerable amount of job loss associated with them. The inflation rate also has an effect on unemployment. It was found to be at 1.6 percent in January of 2011 in the United States. The other reason for job loss may be due to job grab by other nations. It is believed that low labor costs are associated with China. And because of this large number of jobs are being moved out of the nation into China.

Unemployment Rate:
The unemployment rate in the US was 9.4% in December 2010. About 1,483 mass layoff actions were taken by employers in December involving 137,992 workers seasonally adjusted as measured by the filings for unemployment insurance benefits during the month.

The unemployment rate by January of 2011 was 9%. The unemployment is found to be less in construction, warehousing and transportation department these days. The number of unemployed persons decreased by about 600,000 in January to 13.9 million, while the labor force was unchanged. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 8,519 thousands of people are job losers or those who completed temporary jobs constituting 60% of the unemployed. 5,879 thousands of people are permanent job losers by January 2011 in the nation. The inflation rate in United States was last reported at 1.60 percent in January of 2011.

The effect of recession is therefore still seen in the nation. Though the level of unemployment rate decreased fell from 9.4% to 9% from December 2010 to January 2011, with increase in inflation rates it may be seen that the unemployment rate may increase again.