April 07, 2003 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Unemployment rate in March 2003

The unemployment rate was unchanged in March, at 5.8 percent (seasonally adjusted); the number of unemployed persons was 8.4 million.

Unemployment rates, March 2003 (seasonally adjusted)
[Chart data—TXT]

The seasonally-adjusted jobless rates for the major worker groups—adult men (5.3 percent), adult women (5.0 percent), teenagers (17.7 percent), whites (5.1 percent), blacks or African Americans (10.2 percent), and Hispanics or Latinos (7.5 percent)—showed little or no change in March. The unemployment rate for Asians was 6.5 percent, not seasonally adjusted. 

About 1 in 5 unemployed persons had been without a job for 27 weeks or longer.

These data are from the Current Population Survey (CPS). For more information on current unemployment, see "The Employment Situation: March 2003" (PDF) (TXT), USDL 03-157.

Happy 10th Birthday, TED!

The very first issue of The Editor's Desk (TED) was posted on September 28, 1998. TED was the first online-only publication of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For 10 years, BLS has been committed to posting a new TED article each business day, for a total of over 2,400 articles so far.

Find out more about the story of TED