January 30, 2003 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Reasons for unemployment in 2002

The share of the unemployed made up of job losers and those who had completed temporary jobs rose to 54.7 percent in 2002 from 50.8 in 2001.

[Chart data—TXT]

The increase in share was entirely among permanent job losers. Their share of the total number unemployed rose by about six percentage points to 32.1 percent. Shares of unemployment edged down among workers on temporary layoff and persons who completed temporary jobs.

In each of the other categories shown on the chart, the share of unemployed also declined in 2002. Reentrants accounted for 28.5 percent of the unemployed in 2002, down from 30.1 percent the year before. Job leavers made up 10.4 percent of the unemployed last year, compared with 12.3 percent in 2001. The share accounted for by new entrants was 6.5 percent in 2002, compared with 6.7 percent in 2001.

These data are from the Current Population Survey. More information on reasons for unemployment in 2002 can be found in Table 27 of the January 2003 Employment and Earnings.

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