Sep. 24--On a national level, it's pretty easy to get a good idea of who's been hurt the most during the recession.

National economic data -- updated monthly -- can tell us that more men than women have lost their jobs. Ditto for blacks and Hispanics who, percentagewise, have received more pink slips than white workers.

But locally? Or even statewide? There's nothing that comes close to the same level of accuracy or timeliness.

For Texas, the most recent demographic breakdown of unemployment statistics is an average from 2008, according to regional economist Cheryl Abbot of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in Dallas. And that's when the unemployment rate was 4.8 percent, a long way from today's 8 percent rate.

Information gets even sketchier for cities and counties, even big ones like Houston. The information, which is collected by the U.S. Census Bureau through household interviews, isn't released for areas smaller than states because the sample size isn't big enough.

Many not eligible

It turns out, however, that the Texas Workforce Commission has some interesting -- if not useful -- data on who's lost their jobs in our metropolitan region. However -- and this is a big however -- the information only includes the folks who are eligible to receive unemployment benefits.

In Texas, as of last year, that's only 20 percent of those who have lost their jobs, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The national average is 37 percent.

In Texas, people with a relatively short work history aren't eligible for benefits; neither are independent contractors and many religious workers. New graduates coming straight from high school or college also aren't eligible unless they lost jobs; neither are workers fired for misconduct such as theft or repeated tardiness.

So while it may be difficult to assume that the statistics reflect the demographic makeup of unemployed Houstonians, it's about all we have. But it turns out that some of it reflects national trends. And it is updated monthly, just like the national statistics.

One of the most startling bits of information is that more men have lost their jobs than women. In August, 61.3 percent of the jobless Houstonians receiving unemployment benefits were men, while 38.7 percent were women, according to the commission's data.

A year earlier, in August 2008, the percentage was virtually even.

A lot of the recent job losses have been concentrated in male-dominated industries such as manufacturing, construction, wholesaling, trucking and warehousing, said Barton Smith, director of the Institute for Regional Forecasting at the University of Houston.