March 28, 2002 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Unemployment rates up across the board in 2001

The economic recession and concomitant employment losses in a wide range of industries were felt by workers in all major demographic groups last year.

[Chart data—TXT]

In the fourth quarter of 2001, the national unemployment rate was 5.6 percent, up 1.6 percentage points from the fourth quarter of 2000. Unemployment rose for every major worker group. The unemployment rates for both adult men and women rose by 1.6 percentage points to end the year at 5 percent. The teen unemployment rate rose from 12.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2000 to 15.8 percent a year later.

The unemployment rate for whites rose by 1.4 percentage points over the year to 4.9 percent. The unemployment rate for blacks rose considerably, to 9.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2001, up from 7.4 percent a year earlier. The unemployment rate for Hispanics increased 1.9 percentage points to 7.5 percent by the end of 2001.

These data are a product of the Current Population Survey. The above figures are seasonally adjusted. Find out more about unemployment in 2001 in "U.S. labor market in 2001: economy enters a recession," by David S. Langdon, Terence M. McMenamin, and Thomas J. Krolik, Monthly Labor Review, February 2002.