March 13, 2000 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)
Managers, laborers
unemployed longest in 1999
About half of
unemployed managerial and professional specialty workers had been jobless
7.1 weeks or more at the time of the monthly unemployment surveys in 1999.
The median unemployed operator, fabricator, or laborer had been unemployed
for 7.0 weeks.
[Chart data—TXT]
At the other end of the chart, technical, sales, and administrative
support workers and workers in service occupations each had a median
duration of unemployment of 5.9 weeks in 1999.
The lower duration of unemployment among technical, sales,
administrative and service workers reflected declines of roughly half a
week from those recorded in 1998. None of the other occupational groups
reported a significant change in duration of unemployment.
These data are a product of the Current
Population Survey. Duration of
unemployment represents the length of time, through the current reference
week, that unemployed persons had been looking for work. Median duration
is the midpoint of the distribution of weeks of unemployment. For more
annual average data on unemployment duration and occupation, see the Table
32 of the January 2000 issue of Employment
and Earnings. You can access additional pre-formatted tables from Employment
and Earnings through the Current
Labor Statistics button on the Monthly
Labor Review homepage.
Of interest
Spotlight on Statistics: National Hispanic Heritage Month
In this Spotlight, we take a look at the Hispanic labor force—including labor force participation, employment and unemployment, educational attainment, geographic location, country of birth, earnings, consumer expenditures, time use, workplace injuries, and employment projections.
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Read more »