Afford Anything · Friday, August 7, 2026
The divergence between job losses and a falling unemployment rate can be attributed to factors like an increase in self-employment or individuals holding fewer jobs. The unemployment rate survey focuses on individual work status, counting the self-employed and not penalizing those who move from two jobs to one, unlike the establishment survey which tracks payroll jobs.
“One possibility is that more people are deciding to become self-employed.”
“By contrast, the unemployment rate uses a different survey. The unemployment rate asks people, individuals about their work status.”
“If a person holds two jobs and then later they decide to go down to only one job, that would technically count as a job loss, as a reduction of one payroll job, assuming that that job doesn't get filled by somebody else.”