The Chicago Fed Real-Time Unemployment Rate Forecast for April is 4.24%, down slightly from the BLS value for the previous month (4.26%). This forecast is mostly a product of a small improvement in hiring as measured by the Chicago Fed’s Hiring Rate for Unemployed Workers.

The Chicago Fed Real-Time Unemployment Rate Forecast is a median estimate of the unrounded BLS unemployment rate from a statistical model. The BLS follows the convention of reporting the official unemployment rate rounded to the nearest tenth. Applying this same convention to the Chicago Fed model, we can predict the likely direction of change in the official BLS unemployment rate. The current forecast implies 53% odds of a decrease, 26% odds of no change, and 21% odds of an increase.