2000 Work Experience of the Population — 2001-11-06

A total of 148.6 million persons worked at some point during 2000, an increase of about 1 million persons from the prior year, according to the annual survey of work experience released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor. The number of individuals who experienced some unemployment during the year continued to decline. About 12.3 million individuals were in this category in 2000, down about 800,000 from 1999. These data are from the March 2001 supplement to the Current Population Survey (CPS), a monthly survey conducted by the Bureau of the Census for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Additional information about this annual supplement, including concepts and definitions, is provided in the Technical Note. --The proportion of the civilian noninstitutional population 16 years old and over that worked at some point during the year, 70.4 percent, was essentially unchanged from 1999. This proportion had been trending upward over the past three decades.