The FTC linked noncompetes to inhibited labor-market matching and projected gains from banning them. In indicator-value terms, lower unemployment is beneficial, so the proposed mechanism is weakening / -1; because the rule was blocked, confidence in realized movement is low. Strength basis: FTC evidence supports improved job mobility and matching, but the federal rule never took effect. Strength 0.38 is a qualitative pathway class from the pack, not an empirical coefficient; it creates no historical indicator observations.
Cost-of-Living Pressure: raises welfare, impact strength 38%, 0 linked facts on the timeline.Unemployment, total (% of total labor force) (modeled ILO estimate)
It belongs to Income, Employment, and Material Well-Being, the part of the welfare catalog concerned with household resources, labour-market inclusion, and the material constraints that shape daily choices. The exact stored unit is % of total labor force, the geographic presentation is global, the data publisher is…
How to read it
Readings above the normal line are worse than normal, so they plot downward here; readings below it are better.
Indicator & its drivers over time
About this indicator
It belongs to Income, Employment, and Material Well-Being, the part of the welfare catalog concerned with household resources, labour-market inclusion, and the material constraints that shape daily choices. The exact stored unit is % of total labor force, the geographic presentation is global, the data publisher is World Bank, and the immutable numerical identity is WDI SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS#identity. The preliminary catalog candidate 5 is reconciled to the exact official series “Unemployment, total (% of total labor force) (modeled ILO estimate)” in % of total labor force. This is a deliberate canonical correction: the database title names what the values actually measure, while the input wording remains in the reconciliation and audit trail. No hidden proxy label, fallback series, or silently substituted denominator remains. For catalog item 5, the provider definition is: Unemployment refers to the share of the labor force that is without work but available for and seeking employment. That definition controls the denominator, population, reporting instrument, and statistical meaning. This Indicator records an observed outcome; it does not assert why that outcome changed. Welfare assessment for item 5 uses lowerisbetter. Lower observations are treated as better welfare relative to the dated comparative reference. The direction applies to the stored official measure after the disclosed transformation, if any, rather than being inferred from an emotionally positive or negative title. No mathematical transformation is applied before persistence. Keeping title, series identity, unit, scope, transformation, and interpretation together prevents the record from mixing incompatible measurement concepts. The numerical observations for catalog item 5 were retrieved from World Development Indicators (WDI) through https://data360api.worldbank.org/data360/data?DATABASEID=WBWDI&INDICATOR=WBWDISLUEMTOTL_ZS&timePeriodFrom=2018&timePeriodTo=2025 (opens in a new tab). The provider landing page is https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS (opens in a new tab). The research package records the access date, exact dataset and series identifiers, dimension key country=all, unit, provider metadata, transformation, and yearly aggregation label. The bounded Source and Evidence records can therefore reproduce which numbers were used without treating a generic homepage as row-level proof. Measurement provenance for item 5 follows this provider method: The World Bank world aggregate is retained when it exists for a year; otherwise Factrail records a disclosed unweighted mean of reporting economies for the same exact indicator code. The aggregation label on every point distinguishes those two cases. 2018 combines 187 reporting economies; 2019 combines 187 reporting economies; 2020 combines 187 reporting economies; 2021 combines 187 reporting economies; 2022 combines 186 reporting economies; 2023 combines 184 reporting economies; 2024 combines 182 reporting economies; 2025 combines 182 reporting economies. The output keeps full numerical precision through NormalLine, deviation, and interpretation calculations. Display clients may round for readability, but the persisted value is not squeezed into a zero-to-one score and is not rounded before calculation. The item 5 NormalLine starts on 2018-01-01 at 3.49125 % of total labor force. 25th percentile of provider-published reporting-economy observations in the selected series and dimensions. The calculation keeps the source unit, dimensions, and transformation fixed and is a comparative reference rather than an invented statutory target. For zeroisnorm, the value is exactly zero and is never relaxed because non-zero observations are common. For every item 5 point, normallinevalue copies that dated line and deviationfromnormal is stored in raw-unit terms as observation minus NormalLine. Arithmetic sign and welfare sign are separate. A positive raw deviation is adverse for lowerisbetter, favourable for higherisbetter, and adverse above zero for zeroisnorm. The custom governance score retains its provider scale and uses the public methodology explanation rather than title sentiment. The complete retained sequence is 2018: 5.759542 % of total labor force; 2019: 5.58848 % of total labor force; 2020: 6.587689 % of total labor force; 2021: 6.045561 % of total labor force; 2022: 5.234628 % of total labor force; 2023: 4.849917 % of total labor force; 2024: 4.80628 % of total labor force; 2025: 4.791333 % of total labor force. The first observation is 5.759542 % of total labor force in 2018 and the latest is 4.791333 % of total labor force in 2025. The absolute change is -0.968209 % of total labor force, equivalent to -16.8105206977% of the absolute starting level. The minimum observed value is 4.791333 % of total labor force, and the maximum is 6.587689 % of total labor force. For catalog item 5, the latest observation differs from the NormalLine by 1.300083 % of total labor force and is classified as negative under lowerisbetter. That classification is a deterministic comparison, not a causal explanation or editorial verdict. A movement may reflect real change, altered reporting coverage, revised estimates, a changed survey frame, or several of those at once. There are 8 retained item 5 observations in the selected 2018-2025 research window. The retained observations satisfy the minimum temporal rule without interpolation, extrapolation, or forward filling. Missing years are absent observations, not zeroes. The sequence is intentionally irregular when the official source is irregular, because a smooth-looking line created by invented values would be methodologically false. The displayed global item 5 sequence has one consistent numerical identity: WDI SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS#identity. No second source series is spliced into a gap, no latest value is copied into a missing year, and no country-only observation is relabelled as a World value. If the source later adds or revises an observation, the update must arrive as a new reviewed research package with its own checksum and audit record. A defensible graph edge requires an existing Driver, direction, strength, lag, confidence, and Source/Evidence that supports the mechanism. The outcome series alone cannot establish that causal chain. For item 5, importance weight 0.8 is generated by indicator-importance-rubric-v1. Its five committed components are directness 0.9, population reach 0.7, persistence 0.75, effect on human capabilities 0.75, and overlap control 0.9. The formula weights them 0.35, 0.25, 0.20, 0.15, and 0.05, then rounds to the nearest 0.05. The value is deterministic and reproducible; it is not an intuitive score assigned while drafting prose. The 2018-2025 sequence for item 5 is too short for strong causal or structural claims. Cross-economy comparability can be affected by institutional definitions, survey coverage, modelled estimates, missing observations, classification practices, revisions, and unequal statistical capacity. A global aggregate or unweighted reporting-economy mean can also conceal distributional extremes and should not be used as an individual-level estimate. The item 5 NormalLine is a transparent comparative reference, not a claim that every jurisdiction has the same legal target or feasible frontier. The source may revise both historical points and metadata. Any later refresh must preserve the earlier Source, Evidence, checksum, and audit trail; it must not mutate the meaning of an already reviewed series identity.
Causal network
This indicator’s slice of Factrail’s verified causal web — the people, facts, drivers and welfare indicators it connects to. Select any node to trace a path.
By the Factrail desk · Method: how we source and score · Last reviewed