July 24, 2001 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Displaced workers reemployed in the same industry, 2000

By February 2000, over half of reemployed workers who were displaced from their jobs in 1997-98 were working in the same industry as before.

[Chart data—TXT]

Proportions of reemployed workers that found jobs within the same broad industry group varied considerably. For example, nearly 7 in 10 workers displaced from finance, insurance, and real estate, and more than 6 in 10 from the services industry, were reemployed in those same industries. In contrast, less than one quarter who lost wholesale trade jobs were reemployed in that industry.

Statistics here are for "long-tenured workers"—those who had been in their jobs for 3 years or longer. Displaced workers lose their jobs because their plants or companies close down or move, their positions or shifts are abolished, or their employers do not have enough work for them to do.

These data are from a February 2000 supplement to the Current Population Survey. Note that the percentages in the chart are for displaced workers employed at the time of the survey. Find more information on displacement in "Worker displacement in a strong labor market" by Ryan T. Helwig, Monthly Labor Review, June 2001.