December 29, 2009 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)
Unemployment by geographic region and division, November 2009
In November, the West reported the highest regional jobless rate, 10.6 percent, while the Northeast recorded the lowest rate, 8.7 percent.
![Unemployment rate by geographic region and division, November 2008 and November 2009, seasonally adjusted](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20120924201450im_/http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/images/2009/ted_20091229.png)
[Chart data]
Over the year, all four regions registered significant rate increases, the largest of which was in the West (+3.4 percentage points).
Among the nine geographic divisions, the Pacific continued to report the highest jobless rate, 11.6 percent in November. The East North Central recorded the next highest rate, 11.0 percent. The rate in the South Atlantic (10.0 percent) was the highest in its series. (All region, division, and state series begin in 1976.)
The West North Central registered the lowest November jobless rate, 7.2 percent, followed by the West South Central, 7.7 percent.
All nine divisions had significant over-the-year rate increases, with the largest of these occurring in the Pacific (+3.7 percentage points), East North Central (+3.6 points), and East South Central (+3.5 points).
Michigan (in the East North Central division) again recorded the highest unemployment rate among the states, 14.7 percent in November. The states with the next highest rates were Rhode Island (in the New England division), 12.7 percent, and California (in the Pacific division), Nevada (in the Pacific division), and South Carolina (in the South Atlantic division), 12.3 percent each.
These data are from the Local Area Unemployment Statistics program and are seasonally adjusted. For more information, see "Regional and State Employment and Unemployment November 2009" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL 09-1535.
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