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13-946-PHI

Monday, May 13, 2013

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Unemployment on the Delmarva Peninsula by County – March 2013

Ten of 14 Counties Posted Lower Unemployment Rates than the Previous Year

In March, Worcester County, Md., had the highest unemployment rate on the Delmarva Peninsula1 at 14.6 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Sheila Watkins, the Bureau’s regional commissioner, noted that 11 of the 14 Delmarva Peninsula counties posted jobless rates greater than or equal to the 7.6-percent U.S. average. Accomack County, Va., and Queen Anne’s County, Md., posted the lowest rates each at 6.4 percent, while New Castle, Del. also registered a jobless rate below that for the nation, at 7.1 percent. (See chart 1 and chart 2. All data in this release are not seasonally adjusted; accordingly, over-the-year analysis is used throughout.)

Chart 1. Unemployment rates for the United States and counties on the Delmarva Peninsula, March 2013, not seasonally adjusted

Thirteen of the 14 counties on the Delmarva Peninsula posted unemployment rates in March 2013 that differed by less than 1.0 percentage point from a year earlier. Accomack County, Va., had the largest decrease, down 1.2 percentage points, and was the only county to exceed the national decline of 0.8 point. Nine other counties posted jobless rate decreases ranging from 0.8 to 0.1 point since last March. Four counties recorded unemployment rate increases from March 2012, all of which were under 0.5 percentage point; three of these were the counties located in Delaware. (See table A.)

Table A. Unemployment rates for the United States, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and counties on the Delmarva Peninsula, not seasonally adjusted

Area
 Back
data		 Unemployment rates
 Net change from
Mar
2011		 Mar
2012		 Mar
2013 (1)		 Mar 2011
to
Mar 2013 (1)		 Mar 2012
to
Mar 2013 (1)

United States
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 9.2 8.4 7.6 -1.6 -0.8

Delaware
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 7.5 7.2 7.4 -0.1 0.2

Kent
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 7.7 7.5 7.9 0.2 0.4

New Castle
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 7.2 6.9 7.1 -0.1 0.2

Sussex
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 8.2 7.9 8.2 0.0 0.3

Maryland
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 7.2 6.8 6.6 -0.6 -0.2

Caroline
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 9.3 8.8 8.0 -1.3 -0.8

Cecil
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 9.6 8.6 8.8 -0.8 0.2

Dorchester
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 11.5 11.0 10.5 -1.0 -0.5

Kent
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 7.6 7.8 7.6 0.0 -0.2

Queen Anne's
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 7.5 6.8 6.4 -1.1 -0.4

Somerset
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 11.3 10.9 10.8 -0.5 -0.1

Talbot
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 8.4 8.2 7.9 -0.5 -0.3

Wicomico
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 9.1 9.0 8.7 -0.4 -0.3

Worcester
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 16.0 14.9 14.6 -1.4 -0.3

Virginia
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 6.4 6.0 5.2 -1.2 -0.8

Accomack
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 7.7 7.6 6.4 -1.3 -1.2

Northampton
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 9.2 9.2 9.0 -0.2 -0.2

Footnotes
(1) Data for Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and counties on the Delmarva Peninsula are preliminary for the most recent month.

Jobless rates in 11 of the 14 Delmarva Peninsula counties were below their March 2011 levels. No county on the Delmarva Peninsula had a decrease greater than the national rate decline (-1.6 percentage points) although five counties posted declines of 1.0 point or greater, led by Worcester, Md. (-1.4 points). Another six counties posted decreases ranging from 0.8 point in Cecil, Md., to 0.1 point in New Castle, Del. Two other counties—Sussex, Del., and Kent, Md.—had unchanged unemployment rates since March 2011, while Kent, Del., was the only county to record a rate increase over the last two years, up 0.2 percentage point.

Footnotes

1The Delmarva Peninsula, located on the east coast of the United States, comprises Delaware and portions of Maryland and Virginia.  The Delmarva Peninsula includes Kent, New Castle, and Sussex Counties in Delaware; Caroline, Cecil, Dorchester, Kent, Queen Anne’s, Somerset, Talbot, Wicomico, and Worcester Counties in Maryland; and Accomack and Northampton Counties in Virginia.

Technical Note

This release presents unemployment rate data for states and counties from the Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) program, a federal-state cooperative endeavor.

Definitions. The labor force and unemployment data are based on the same concepts and definitions as those used for the official national estimates obtained from the Current Population Survey (CPS), a sample survey of households that is conducted for the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) by the U.S. Census Bureau. The LAUS program measures employment and unemployment on a place-of-residence basis. The universe for each is the civilian noninstitutional population 16 years of age and over. Employed persons are those who did any work at all for pay or profit in the reference week (the week including the 12th of the month) or worked 15 hours or more without pay in a family business or farm, plus those not working who had a job from which they were temporarily absent, whether or not paid, for such reasons as labor-management dispute, illness, or vacation. Unemployed persons are those who were not employed during the reference week (based on the definition above), had actively looked for a job sometime in the 4-week period ending with the reference week, and were currently available for work; persons on layoff expecting recall need not be looking for work to be counted as unemployed. The labor force is the sum of employed and unemployed persons. The unemployment rate is the number of unemployed as a percent of the labor force.

Method of estimation. Estimates for the substate areas in this release are prepared through indirect estimation procedures using a building-block approach. Employment estimates, which are based largely on “place of work” estimates from the Current Employment Statistics (CES) program, are adjusted to refer to place of residence as used in the CPS. Unemployment estimates are aggregates of persons previously employed in industries covered by state unemployment insurance (UI) laws and entrants to the labor force data from the CPS. The substate estimates of employment and unemployment, which geographically exhaust the entire state, are adjusted proportionally to ensure that they add to the independently estimated state or balance-of-state totals. A detailed description of the estimation procedures is available from BLS upon request.

Annual revisions. Labor force and unemployment data for prior years reflect adjustments made at the end of each year, usually implemented with January estimates. The adjusted estimates reflect updated population data from the U.S. Census Bureau, any revisions in the other data sources, and model reestimation.

Information in this release will be made available to sensory impaired individuals upon request.  Voice phone: (202) 691-5200; Federal Relay Service: (800) 877-8339.

Chart 2. Unemployment rates for counties on the Delmarva Peninsula, not seasonally adjusted, March 2013

 

Last Modified Date: May 13, 2013