In March 2012, Queen Anne’s County, Md., recorded the lowest unemployment rate on the Delmarva Peninsula¹ at 6.9 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Sheila Watkins, the Bureau’s regional commissioner, noted that 8 of the 14 counties on the Delmarva Peninsula recorded unemployment rates equal to or below the 8.4-percent U.S. average. Worcester County, Md., posted the highest unemployment rate, 14.7 percent. Five other counties registered jobless rates above that for the nation, ranging from 10.8 to 8.7 percent. (See chart 1 and chart 2. All data in this release are not seasonally adjusted; accordingly, over-the-year analysis is used throughout.)

Twelve of the 14 counties on the Delmarva Peninsula had lower unemployment rates in March 2012 than one year earlier. Worcester, Md., and Cecil, Md., recorded the largest declines—1.1 and 1.0 percentage points, respectively. The remaining 10 counties posted decreases below the U.S. decline of 0.8 percentage point. The unemployment rate for Wicomico, Md., was unchanged over the year. Kent, Md., was the only county to register an over-the-year increase, up 0.3 point. (See table A.)

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

Area	Unemployment rate			Net change from
	Mar 2010	Mar 2011	Mar 2012(1)	Mar 2010 to Mar 2012(1)	Mar 2011 to Mar 2012(1)
United States	10.2	9.2	8.4	-1.8	-0.8
Delaware	8.6	7.4	7.1	-1.5	-0.3
Kent	8.3	7.3	7.2	-1.1	-0.1
New Castle	8.5	7.2	7.0	-1.5	-0.2
Sussex	9.1	8.0	7.5	-1.6	-0.5
Maryland	8.3	7.1	6.7	-1.6	-0.4
Caroline	11.1	9.0	8.7	-2.4	-0.3
Cecil	10.8	9.4	8.4	-2.4	-1.0
Dorchester	12.6	11.1	10.8	-1.8	-0.3
Kent	9.8	7.4	7.7	-2.1	0.3
Queen Anne's	8.7	7.4	6.9	-1.8	-0.5
Somerset	12.2	11.1	10.8	-1.4	-0.3
Talbot	9.7	8.2	8.1	-1.6	-0.1
Wicomico	10.2	8.9	8.9	-1.3	0.0
Worcester	17.5	15.8	14.7	-2.8	-1.1
Virginia	7.4	6.3	5.7	-1.7	-0.6
Accomack	7.8	7.6	7.4	-0.4	-0.2
Northampton	8.6	9.0	8.9	0.3	-0.1
Footnotes: (1) Data for Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and all counties are preliminary for the most recent month.

Jobless rates in 13 of the 14 Delmarva Peninsula counties were below their March 2010 levels. Six counties had decreases equal to or greater than the national decline (-1.8 percentage points), led by Worcester, Md., down 2.8 percentage points. The remaining eight counties posted decreases ranging from 1.6 points in Sussex, Del., and Talbot, Md., to 0.4 point in Accomack, Va. The unemployment rate in Northampton, Va., increased 0.3 point from March 2010 to March 2012.

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/.

 

Last Modified Date: May 14, 2012