December 6, 1999 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Unemployment in November

The number of unemployed persons, 5.7 million, was essentially unchanged in November, and the unemployment rate held at 4.1 percent (seasonally adjusted).

[Chart data—TXT]

The jobless rate has been below 4.3 percent since August. Unemployment rates for the major demographic groups—adult men (3.3 percent), adult women (3.6 percent), teenagers (14.1 percent), whites (3.5 percent), blacks (8.1 percent), and Hispanics (6.0 percent)—showed little or no change over the month.

Also, about 1.1 million persons (not seasonally adjusted) were marginally attached to the labor force in November. These were people who wanted and were available to work and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months but were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.

These data are a product of the Current Population Survey. Find out more in "The Employment Situation: November 1999," news release USDL 99-346.