In March, Chester County, Pa., recorded the lowest unemployment rate in the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, Pa.-N.J.-Del.-Md. Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) at 5.9 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Sheila Watkins, the Bureau’s regional commissioner, noted that Salem, N.J. (11.3 percent) posted the highest unemployment rate among the 11 counties that make up the metropolitan area. Philadelphia, Pa., and the remaining three New Jersey counties—Camden, Gloucester, and Burlington—also recorded jobless rates that exceeded the U.S. average of 8.4 percent. (See chart 1 and chart 2. The Technical Note at the end of this release contains metropolitan area definitions. All data in this release are not seasonally adjusted; accordingly, over-the-year analysis is used throughout.)

Nine of 11 counties in the Philadelphia metropolitan area had unemployment rates that were lower in March 2012 than a year earlier. The largest decrease was in Cecil County, Md., down 1.0 percentage point. The remaining eight decreases were less than the national decline of 0.8 percentage point. The unemployment rate in Burlington County, N.J., was unchanged over the year. The only Philadelphia-area county with a 12-month increase in its unemployment rate was Salem, N.J., up 0.1 percentage point since March 2011. (See table A.)

Unemployment rates in all 11 Philadelphia-area counties were lower in March 2012 than in March 2010; however, 10 of these decreases were smaller than the national average decline of 1.8 percentage points. Cecil County, Md., had the largest two-year decrease in the area at 2.4 percentage points, while Burlington, N.J., registered the smallest decrease at 0.5 percentage point.

The March 2012 unemployment rates for the three metropolitan divisions in the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington metropolitan area were 7.5 percent in the Wilmington, Del.-Md.-N.J., division, 8.1 percent in the Philadelphia, Pa., division, and 9.7 percent in the Camden, N.J., division. Since March 2011, both the Philadelphia and Camden divisions posted unemployment rate declines of 0.2 percentage point, and Wilmington had a decline of 0.4 percentage point.  

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.  The adjusted estimates reflect updated population data from the U.S. Census Bureau, any revisions in the other data sources, and model reestimation. In most years, historical data for the most recent five years (both seasonally adjusted and not seasonally adjusted) are revised near the beginning of each calendar year, prior to or coincident with the release of January estimates

Information in this release will be made available to sensory impaired individuals upon request. Voice phone:  (202) 691-5200; TDD message referral phone:  1-800-877-8339.

For personal assistance or further information on the Local Area Unemployment Statistics data, as well as other Bureau data, contact the Mid-Atlantic Information Office at 215-597-3282 from 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET. Information on the Local Area Unemployment Statistics program and other surveys and programs is available on our Web site at www.bls.gov/ro3/.

Area definitions. The substate area data published in this release reflect the standards and definitions established by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, dated December 1, 2009. A detailed list of the geographic definitions is available at www.bls.gov/lau/lausmsa.htm.

The Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, Pa.-N.J.-Del.-Md. Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) includes Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia Counties in Pennsylvania; Burlington, Camden, Gloucester, and Salem Counties in New Jersey; New Castle County in Delaware; and Cecil County in Maryland.

• The Camden, N.J. Metropolitan Division (MD) includes Burlington, Camden, and Gloucester Counties in New Jersey.
• The Philadelphia, Pa. Metropolitan Division (MD) includes Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia Counties in Pennsylvania.
• The Wilmington, Del.-Md.-N.J. Metropolitan Division (MD) includes New Castle County in Delaware; Cecil County in Maryland; and Salem County in New Jersey.