Displaced and reemployed workers by industry, January 2006

Between January 2003 and December 2005, 1.1 million manufacturing workers were displaced from their jobs.

[Chart data—TXT]

Displacements in manufacturing made up 28 percent of the 3.8 million long-tenured workers who were displaced from their jobs during the 2003-05 period; long-tenured workers are those who had held their jobs for at least 3 years.

Displacements in wholesale and retail trade (508,000) accounted for 13 percent of all long-tenured workers displaced during the 2003-05 period. Long-tenured displaced workers in professional and business services (406,000) made up 11 percent of the total.

The reemployment rate for displaced manufacturing workers (65 percent) was lower than the overall reemployment rate for displaced workers (70 percent). Reemployment rates for workers displaced from jobs in the transportation and utilities industry and in the financial activities industry (77 percent each) were above average. (Workers were not necessarily reemployed in the same industries from which they were displaced.)

These data are from the Current Population Survey program. To learn more about displaced workers, see "Worker Displacement, 2003-05," (PDF) (TXT) news release USDL 06-1454. Displaced workers are defined as persons 20 years of age and older who lost or left jobs because their plant or company closed or moved, there was insufficient work for them to do, or their position or shift was abolished.