In September, Falls Church City, Va., and Arlington County, Va., had the lowest unemployment rates in the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, D.C.-Va.-Md.-W.Va. Metropolitan Statistical Area at 3.7 percent each, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Sheila Watkins, the Bureau’s regional commissioner, noted that the District of Columbia had an unemployment rate of 7.8 percent, the highest rate among the 22 counties that make up the metropolitan area. Prince George’s County, Md., had the second-highest rate at 5.9 percent and was the only other county to exceed the 5.7-percent U.S. rate. The unemployment rate for Fredericksburg City, Va., matched that for the U.S., while the rates for the remaining 17 counties in the area ranged from 5.5 percent in Warren County, Va., to 4.1 percent in Manassas Park City, Va., and Alexandria City, Va. (See chart 1 and chart 2. The Technical Note at the end of this release contains the metropolitan area definitions. All data in this release are not seasonally adjusted; accordingly, over-the-year analysis is used throughout.)

 

Thirteen of the 22 Washington-area counties had lower unemployment rates in September 2014 than in September 2013. (See table A.) While no county had a rate decline that exceeded the national decrease of 1.3 percentage points, Prince George’s County, Md., recorded the area’s largest decrease at 0.7 point. The remaining over-the-year declines in the area ranged from 0.6 percentage point to 0.1 point. Six counties in the area posted unemployment rate increases since September 2013 with Fredericksburg City, Va., posting the largest rate increase at 0.5 percentage point. The three remaining Washington-area counties had jobless rates that were unchanged over the year.

 

Table A. Unemployment rates for the United States, the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, D.C.-Va.-Md.-W.Va. Metropolitan Statistical Area, and its components, not seasonally adjusted

Area	Unemployment rate			Change from
	Sep 2012	Sep 2013	Sep 2014(1)	Sep 2012 to Sep 2014(1)	Sep 2013 to Sep 2014(1)
United States	7.6	7.0	5.7	-1.9	-1.3
Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, D.C.-Va.-Md.-W.Va.	5.6	5.3	5.0	-0.6	-0.3
Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, D.C.-Va.-Md.-W.Va. Metropolitan Division	5.7	5.4	5.2	-0.5	-0.2
District of Columbia	8.9	8.1	7.8	-1.1	-0.3
Arlington County, Va.	3.7	3.7	3.7	0.0	0.0
Clarke County, Va.	4.8	4.0	4.4	-0.4	0.4
Fairfax County, Va.	4.3	4.3	4.2	-0.1	-0.1
Fauquier County, Va.	4.7	4.5	4.3	-0.4	-0.2
Loudoun County, Va.	4.2	4.2	4.2	0.0	0.0
Prince William County, Va.	4.8	4.8	4.6	-0.2	-0.2
Spotsylvania County, Va.	5.2	4.9	5.0	-0.2	0.1
Stafford County, Va.	5.1	4.9	4.8	-0.3	-0.1
Warren County, Va.	5.5	5.3	5.5	0.0	0.2
Alexandria City, Va.	4.2	4.1	4.1	-0.1	0.0
Fairfax City, Va.	4.2	3.9	4.3	0.1	0.4
Falls Church City, Va.	4.2	4.0	3.7	-0.5	-0.3
Fredericksburg City, Va.	5.7	5.2	5.7	0.0	0.5
Manassas City, Va.	4.9	4.9	4.5	-0.4	-0.4
Manassas Park City, Va.	4.8	4.6	4.1	-0.7	-0.5
Calvert County, Md.	5.5	5.3	4.8	-0.7	-0.5
Charles County, Md.	6.1	5.9	5.3	-0.8	-0.6
Prince George's County, Md.	7.0	6.6	5.9	-1.1	-0.7
Jefferson County, W.Va.	5.3	4.4	4.6	-0.7	0.2
Bethesda-Frederick-Rockville, Md. Metropolitan Division	5.2	5.0	4.5	-0.7	-0.5
Frederick County, Md.	5.6	5.4	4.8	-0.8	-0.6
Montgomery County, Md.	5.1	4.9	4.5	-0.6	-0.4
Footnotes: (1) Data for the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, D.C.-Va.-Md.-W.Va. Metropolitan Statistical Area and its components are preliminary for the most recent month.

Unemployment rates in 17 of the 22 counties in the Washington metropolitan area were lower in September 2014 than two years earlier. No county had a rate decline larger than the national decrease of 1.9 percentage points. The District of Columbia and Prince George’s County, Md., had the largest decreases in the local area at 1.1 percentage points each. In the area’s remaining 15 counties with declining unemployment rates, the decreases ranged from 0.8 percentage point to 0.1 point. Fairfax City, Va., had the only unemployment rate increase (+0.1 percentage point) from September 2012 to September 2014. Four counties in the area had unemployment rates that were unchanged over the last two years.

September 2014 unemployment rates for the two metropolitan divisions in the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria metropolitan area were 5.2 percent (Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, D.C.-Va.-Md.-W.Va.) and 4.5 percent (Bethesda-Frederick-Rockville, Md.). Both divisions had smaller unemployment rate declines than the 1.3-percentage point national decrease from September 2013 to September 2014.

 

The Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment news release for October is scheduled to be released on Tuesday, December 9, 2014, at 10:00 a.m. (EDT).

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 12^th 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.

Methods of Estimation. The LAUS program is a hierarchy of non-survey methodologies for indirectly estimating employment and unemployment in states and local areas. Statewide data are produced through a modeling technique that uses estimates of payroll jobs from the Current Employment Statistics survey and unemployment insurance claims counts from the state workforce agencies to mitigate volatility in the direct CPS tabulations of employment and unemployment, respectively. Data for labor market areas, such as metropolitan areas and metropolitan divisions, are produced through a building block approach and adjusted proportionally to state model-based totals. Data for counties within labor market areas are produced through a disaggregation technique. A detailed description of the LAUS estimation procedures is available in chapter 4 of the BLS Handbook of Methods at www.bls.gov/opub/hom/lau/home.htm.

Annual revisions. Labor force and unemployment data for prior years reflect adjustments made at the end of each year, usually implemented with January estimates. The adjusted estimates reflect updated population data from the U.S. Census Bureau, any revisions in the other data sources, and model reestimation. All substate estimates are reestimated and adjusted to add to the revised model-based estimates.