October 2000 — 2000-11-21

Regional and state unemployment rates were stable in October. All four regions posted virtually no change over the month, and 41 states and the District of Columbia recorded shifts of 0.3 percentage point or less, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. The national jobless rate was unchanged from September at 3.9 percent. Nonfarm employment increased in 33 states and the District of Columbia in October. In October, the Midwest again recorded the lowest regional unemployment rate, 3.4 percent, while the West continued to report the highest rate, 4.5 percent. Compared with a year earlier, the Northeast was the only region with a notable change in its jobless rate, registering a 0.6 percentage point decline to 3.7 percent. (See table 1.) Among the nine geographic divisions, New England posted the lowest unemployment rate in October, 2.5 percent.