Unemployment in December 2010
January 11, 2011
The number of unemployed persons decreased by 556,000 to 14.5 million in December, and the unemployment rate dropped to 9.4 percent. Over the year, these measures were down from 15.2 million and 9.9 percent, respectively.
Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (9.4 percent) and whites (8.5 percent) declined in December. The unemployment rates for adult women (8.1 percent), teenagers (25.4 percent), blacks (15.8 percent), and Hispanics (13.0 percent) showed little change. The jobless rate for Asians was 7.2 percent, not seasonally adjusted.
The civilian labor force declined by 260,000 in December, from 153,950,000 to 153,690,000. The labor force participation rate—the percentage of the civilian noninstitutional working-age population who are in the labor force—edged down to 64.3 percent in December.
These data are from the Current Population Survey. To learn more, see "The Employment Situation – December 2010" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL-11-0002.
SUGGESTED CITATION
Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Editor's Desk, Unemployment in December 2010 on the Internet at http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2011/ted_20110111.htm (visited June 19, 2013).
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