The Marshall Islands has the highest unemployment rate of any United State affilitated island in the Pacific according to figures released this week by the the country's Economic Policy, Planning and Statistics Office.
The report says the unemployment rate in 2000 stood at 31 percent as the number of unemployed people increased more that 200 percent from 1998.
In contrast, the next highest was the Federated States of Micronesia with 22 percent unemployment while Palau was the lowest with just 2.3 percent of its popultaiton unemployed.
The number of unemployed people in the Marshalls more than tripled between 1988 and 2000 going from just over 14-hundred people to over 4-thousand 5-hundred.
