Newly revised state unemployment statistics for 2011 and previous years are now available. Each year, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) revises the Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) for each state in a process known as benchmarking. Usually, the changes to the existing estimates are relatively minor, but this year, there were large revisions to Delaware’s estimates for both 2011 and 2010, along with smaller revisions to prior years’ estimates.

The overall effect was to increase the estimates for the number of employed state residents, reduce the estimates for the number of unemployed state residents, and reduce the state’s unemployment rate, especially at the end of 2010 and beginning of 2011. The primary causes of this were updated population estimates from the 2010 Decennial Census and revisions in other states which are part of Delaware’s Census Division. The updated population controls resulted in increased estimates of the number employed. On the unemployment side, current BLS methodology estimates Delaware’s unemployment statistics as part of an area stretching down the Atlantic coast to Florida. Revisions in these other states play a role in Delaware’s revisions; some other states in the Division experienced upward revisions in their unemployment rates, while Delaware’s fell. These estimates will be in place until this time next year, when the estimates for 2012 will be revised for the first time, and estimates for previous years revised again.

Unemployment Rate (graph) Delaware and U.S.A. (July 2011 - July 2012).