Unemployment in large U.S. metropolitan areas, September 2010

Of the 49 metropolitan areas with a Census 2000 population of 1 million or more, Las Vegas-Paradise, Nevada, and Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, California, registered the highest unemployment rates in September, 15.0 and 14.8 percent, respectively.

[Chart data]

The lowest jobless rate among the large areas was recorded by Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, D.C.-Virginia-Maryland-West Virginia, 5.9 percent, followed closely by Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 6.0 percent.

Detroit-Warren-Livonia, Michigan, posted the largest jobless rate decrease over the year (‑2.4 percentage points). Five other large areas recorded decreases of 1.0 percentage point or more, the largest of which were in Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill, North Carolina-South Carolina (‑1.5 points), and Birmingham-Hoover, Alabama (‑1.4 points). Las Vegas-Paradise, Nevada, experienced the largest unemployment rate increase from September 2009 (+1.5 percentage points).

The national unemployment rate in September was 9.2 percent, not seasonally adjusted, compared with 9.5 percent a year earlier.

These data are from the Local Area Unemployment Statistics program and are not seasonally adjusted. The most recent month’s data are preliminary and subject to revision. To learn more, see "Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment — September 2010" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL-10-1517.