January 11, 2001 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Government and financial industry workers use Internet most

Government employees and workers in the finance, insurance, and real estate industry group had the highest rates of on-the-job Internet use in 1998.

Internet use by industry, 1998
[Chart data—TXT]

About 32 percent of employees in public administration reported using the Internet at work. One of the most popular uses of the Internet in government agencies is public information dissemination.

At 30 percent, Internet use among workers in the finance, insurance, and real estate industries was second highest in 1998. Workers in bank, insurance companies, and securities firms need immediate information and data exchange to conduct business.

These data were collected in a supplement to the December 1998 Current Population Survey. See "Internet use: Here, there, and everywhere," by Terry Schau, Occupational Outlook Quarterly, Winter 2000-01, for more information.

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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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