April 4, 2000 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Midwest has lowest unemployment rate again

The unemployment rate in the Midwest was 3.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 1999—the lowest of all the regions. The Midwest had the lowest fourth-quarter jobless rate in every year of the decade.

[Chart data—TXT]

The other three regions had unemployment rates between 4.0 and 5.0 percent at the end of 1999. The South’s rate was 4.0 percent and the rate in the Northeast was 4.2 percent. In the West, the unemployment rate was 4.6 percent.

Three of the region’s had jobless rates in the fourth quarter of 1999 that were at historical lows. The exception was the Northeast, where the rate was only slightly above the 4.0 percent recorded during three different quarters in the late 1980s.

These data are a product of the Local Area Unemployment Statistics. To find out more, see "The job market remains strong in 1999," by Jennifer Martel and Laura A. Kelter, Monthly Labor Review, February 2000.