In June, Chester County, Pa., recorded the lowest unemployment rate in the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, Pa.-N.J.-Del.-Md. Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) at 6.5 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Sheila Watkins, the Bureau’s regional commissioner, noted that Camden, N.J. (11.3 percent) posted the highest unemployment rate among the 11 counties that make up the metropolitan area. Five other counties also recorded jobless rates that exceeded the U.S. average of 8.4 percent. (See chart 1 and chart 2. The Technical Note at the end of this release contains metropolitan area definitions. All data in this release are not seasonally adjusted; accordingly, over-the-year analysis is used throughout.)

Five of 11 counties in the Philadelphia metropolitan area had unemployment rates that were lower in June 2012 than a year earlier, although these declines were less than the national decrease of 0.9 percentage point. The largest decrease was in New Castle County, Del., down 0.8 percentage point. The remaining four jobless rate declines were less than 0.4 percentage point each. The unemployment rates in Chester and Montgomery counties in Pennsylvania were unchanged over the year. Unemployment rates in all four New Jersey counties rose over the year, with Burlington and Gloucester Counties up 0.7 percentage point and Camden and Salem Counties up 0.3 perentage point. (See table A.)

Table A. Unemployment rates for the United States, the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, Pa.-N.J.-Del.-Md. Metropolitan Statistical Area, and its components, not seasonally adjusted

Area	Back data	Unemployment rates			Net change from
		Jun 2010	Jun 2011	Jun 2012 (1)	Jun 2010 to Jun 2012 (1)	Jun 2011 to Jun 2012 (1)
United States		9.6	9.3	8.4	-1.2	-0.9
Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, Pa.-N.J.-Del.-Md. Metropolitan Statistical Area		9.0	8.9	8.9	-0.1	0.0
Philadelphia, Pa. Metropolitan Division		8.6	8.6	8.5	-0.1	-0.1
Bucks County, Pa.		7.6	7.6	7.5	-0.1	-0.1
Chester County, Pa.		6.7	6.5	6.5	-0.2	0.0
Delaware County, Pa.		8.5	8.4	8.3	-0.2	-0.1
Montgomery County, Pa.		7.2	7.0	7.0	-0.2	0.0
Philadelphia County, Pa.		11.0	11.1	10.9	-0.1	-0.2
Camden, N.J. Metropolitan Division		9.9	10.1	10.6	0.7	0.5
Burlington County, N.J.		9.1	9.0	9.7	0.6	0.7
Camden County, N.J.		10.6	11.0	11.3	0.7	0.3
Gloucester County, N.J.		10.1	10.2	10.9	0.8	0.7
Wilmington, Del.-Md.-N.J. Metropolitan Division		9.0	8.3	7.7	-1.3	-0.6
New Castle County, Del.		8.4	7.9	7.1	-1.3	-0.8
Cecil County, Md.		10.7	9.0	8.7	-2.0	-0.3
Salem County, N.J.		11.4	10.9	11.2	-0.2	0.3
Footnotes (1) Data for the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, Pa.-N.J.-Del.-Md. Metropolitan Statistical Area and its components are preliminary for the most recent month.

Unemployment rates in 8 of 11 Philadelphia-area counties were lower in June 2012 than in June 2010; however, 6 of these decreases were 0.2 percentage point or less, well below than the national decline of 1.2 percentage points. Cecil County, Md., had the largest two-year decrease in the area at 2.0 percentage points, followed by New Castle County, Del., down 1.3 points. All three counties in the Camden, N.J., division—Burlington, Camden, and Gloucester—recorded two year increases in their unemployment rates, ranging from 0.6 to 0.8 percentage point.

The June 2012 unemployment rates for the three metropolitan divisions in the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington metropolitan area were 7.7 percent in the Wilmington, Del.-Md.-N.J., division, 8.5 percent in the Philadelphia, Pa., division, and 10.6 percent in the Camden, N.J., division. Since June 2011, the Wilmington division posted an unemployment rate decrease of 0.6 percentage point, while the Camden division’s rate increased 0.5 percentage point. The jobless rate in the Philadelphia division was nearly unchanged, decreasing 0.1 percentage point 

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.

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 December 1, 2009. A detailed list of the geographic definitions is available at www.bls.gov/lau/lausmsa.htm.

The Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, Pa.-N.J.-Del.-Md. Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) includes Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia Counties in Pennsylvania; Burlington, Camden, Gloucester, and Salem Counties in New Jersey; New Castle County in Delaware; and Cecil County in Maryland.

• The Camden, N.J. Metropolitan Division (MD) includes Burlington, Camden, and Gloucester Counties in New Jersey.
• The Philadelphia, Pa. Metropolitan Division (MD) includes Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia Counties in Pennsylvania.
• The Wilmington, Del.-Md.-N.J. Metropolitan Division (MD) includes New Castle County in Delaware; Cecil County in Maryland; and Salem County in New Jersey.