February 01, 2001 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Government workers more likely to be union members

In 2000, government workers continued to have a substantially higher unionization rate than workers in the private sector.

Union membership of employed wage and salary workers, government and private industry, 1999 and 2000
[Chart data—TXT]

Among government workers, 37.5 percent were union members in 2000, compared with 37.3 in 1999. Among private industry workers, 9.0 percent belonged to unions in 2000, compared with 9.4 percent in 1999.

These data on union membership are from the Current Population Survey. Unionization data are for employed wage and salary workers. Find out more in "Union Members in 2000," news release USDL 01-21.