July 30, 2002 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Long-term unemployment most common in Northeast

Workers unemployed for 27 weeks or more made up 14.3 percent of the total unemployed in the Northeast in 2000. This was nearly 3 percentage points higher than in any of the other broad geographic regions.

Unemployed 27 weeks and over as a share of total unemployed, by region, 2000
[Chart data—TXT]

In the West, 11.5 percent of the unemployed were in a spell of unemployment that had lasted 27 weeks or more. Such long durations of unemployment accounted for 10.8 percent of those unemployed in the South and 9.8 percent of those in the Midwest.

These data on employment are a product of the Current Population Survey. Additional information is available from Geographic Profile of Employment and Unemployment, 2000 (PDF 994K) (BLS Bulletin 2550).