A country’s labor force is the sum of the number of employed and unemployed workers. The accompanying table provides data on the size of the labor force and the number of unemployed workers for different regions of the United States.

a. Calculate the number of workers employed in each of the regions in July 2015 and July 2016. Use your answers to calculate the change in the total number of workers employed between July 2015 and July 2016.

b. For each region, calculate the growth in the labor force from July 2015 to July 2016.

c. Compute unemployment rates in the different regions of the country in July 2015 and July 2016.

d. What can you infer about the fall in unemployment rates over this period? Was it caused by a net gain in the number of jobs or by a large fall in the number of people seeking jobs?

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Labor force (thousands) Unemployed (thousands) Region July 2015 July 2016 July 2015 July 2016 Northeast 28,397 28,565 1,459 1,377 South 57,297 58,022 2,978 2,720 Midwest 34,489 34,996 1,627 1,585 West 36,949 37,543 2,099 1,985 Data from: Bureau of Labor Statistics.