Unemployment in the Pittsburgh Area by County – September 2009 (PDF)

In September, Butler County reported the lowest unemployment rate in the Pittsburgh, Pa., Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), at 7.1 percent. Allegheny County, which includes the city of Pittsburgh, had the second-lowest rate at 7.2 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Sheila Watkins, the Bureau’s regional commissioner, noted that all seven counties in the metropolitan area posted unemployment rates below the 9.5-percent U.S. rate. Fayette County (9.1 percent) and Beaver County (8.4 percent) experienced the highest unemployment rates in the area, while the remaining three counties registered jobless rates ranging from 8.0 to 7.8 percent. (See chart 1. The Technical Note at the end of this release contains the metropolitan area definition. 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 in the Pittsburgh, Pa., Metropolitan Statistical Area, September 2009, not seasonally adjusted

All seven counties in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area had unemployment rates that were higher in September 2009 than the previous year. None of the seven counties, however, recorded unemployment rate advances above the national increase of 3.5 percentage points. (See table A.) Fayette County had the largest over-the-year increase, rising 3.3 percentage points, while Allegheny County recorded the smallest over-the-year increase, up 2.5 percentage points.

September unemployment rates in all seven Pittsburgh-area counties have been on the rise since September 2007—three months before the current recession. Two years ago, jobless rates ranged from 3.4 percent in Butler County to 4.7 percent in Fayette County. In fact, all seven Pittsburgh counties had rates below 5.0 percent in September 2007, down to five counties in September 2008, and none in September 2009. The counties with the largest net jobless rate increases over this two-year span were Beaver and Fayette (+4.4 percentage points each), while the smallest change was recorded in Allegheny (+3.3 percentage points).

While unemployment rates for all seven Pittsburgh-area counties were higher in September 2009 than one and two years ago, three counties hit their recent peaks in February 2009. Of the remaining four counties, two recorded their most recent peaks in August 2009, while another two experienced their most recent peaks in July 2009. (See table 1.)

Technical Notes

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 November 20, 2008. A detailed list of the geographic definitions is available at http://www.bls.gov/lau/lausmsa.htm.

The Pittsburgh, Pa. Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) includes Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Washington, and Westmoreland counties in Pennsylvania.