March 11, 2003 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Unemployment in February 2003

The unemployment rate was little changed in February, at 5.8 percent (seasonally adjusted); the number of unemployed persons was 8.5 million.

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

The seasonally-adjusted jobless rates for the major worker groups were as follows: adult men (5.3 percent), adult women (5.0 percent), teenagers (17.1 percent), whites (5.0 percent), blacks or African Americans (10.5 percent), and Hispanics or Latinos (7.7 percent).

The unemployment rate for Asians was 6.0 percent, not seasonally adjusted.

These data are from the Current Population Survey (CPS).  For more information on current unemployment, see "The Employment Situation: February 2003" (PDF) (TXT), USDL 03-99.

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.

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