Regional And State Employment And Unemployment: December 2003 — 2004-01-27

Regional and state unemployment rates were generally stable in December, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. No region and only three states recorded a shift greater than 0.3 percentage point. At 5.7 percent, the national jobless rate was little changed over the month, but has trended down since midyear. The South again registered the lowest unemployment rate, 5.3 percent in December, while the West continued to post the highest rate, 6.0 percent. Compared with December 2002, jobless rates were lower in the West (-0.5 percentage point), Northeast (-0.4 point), and South (-0.3 point) and little changed in the Midwest. (See table 1.) In December, the West North Central and South Atlantic divisions continued to report the lowest unemployment rates among the nine geographic divisions, 4.5 and 4.8 percent, respectively.