December 09, 2003 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Unemployment rate in November

Both the unemployment rate, 5.9 percent, and the number of unemployed persons, 8.7 million, were essentially unchanged in November.

[Chart data—TXT]

Unemployment rates for most of the major worker groups—adult men (5.7 percent), adult women (5.1 percent), teenagers (15.5 percent), whites (5.2 percent) and Hispanics or Latinos (7.4 percent)—were little changed. The rate for blacks (10.2 percent) was down over the month. The unemployment rate for Asians was 5.2 percent, not seasonally adjusted.

In November, 2.0 million unemployed persons had been looking for work for 27 weeks or longer, about the same level as in October. They represented 23.7 percent of the total unemployed.

These data are from the Current Population Survey. Numbers in this article are seasonally adjusted, unless otherwise specified. For more information, see The Employment Situation: November 2003 (PDF) (TXT), news release USDL 03-817.  

Related TED article: 

• Manufacturing employment in November