July 24, 2002 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Regional variation in employment

The proportion of the population with jobs was the highest in the Midwest in 2000. 

[Chart data—TXT]

Among Midwesterners, 67.4 percent of the population was employed on average in 2000. The percentages for the other three regions were clustered within a narrow range: 64.7 percent of those in the West were employed, 63.4 percent in the South, and 62.8 percent in the Northeast.

In the nation as a whole, 64.5 percent of the population had jobs.

These data on employment are a product of the Current Population Survey. Additional information is available from Geographic Profile of Employment and Unemployment, 2000 (PDF 994K) (BLS Bulletin 2550).