April 29, 2003 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Regional variation in employment in 2001

The proportion of the population with jobs was the highest in the Midwest in 2001.

Employment-population ratio by region, 2001
[Chart data—TXT]

In the Midwest, 66.7 percent of the population was employed on average in 2001. The percentages for the other three regions were clustered within a narrow range: 64.0 percent of those in the West were employed, 62.5 percent in the South, and 62.2 percent in the Northeast.

In the nation as a whole, 63.8 percent of the population had jobs.

These data on employment are from the Local Area Unemployment Statistics program. Additional information is available from Geographic Profile of Employment and Unemployment, 2001 (BLS Bulletin 2556).

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