December 23, 2008 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Work-experience unemployment rate in 2007

At 9.5 percent in 2007, the "work-experience unemployment rate" (those looking for work during the year as a percent of those who worked or looked for work during the year) was 0.4 percentage point higher than in 2006.

[Chart data—TXT]

The 2007 rate is relatively low by historical standards, but is above the series low of 8.6 percent reached in 2000.

The rates for Hispanics (12.3 percent) and whites (9.0 percent) rose in 2007, while the rates for blacks (12.7 percent) and Asians (6.9 percent) were little changed.

These data are from the Current Population Survey. To learn more, see "Work Experience of the Population in 2007," USDL news release (PDF) (HTML) news release USDL 08-1803.

Related TED article:

• Working full time, year round in 2007