Detroit News staff and wire

Michigan lost 88,000 residents in 2009 — second only to the state of New York in net migration — as thousands left the recession-plagued state for jobs elsewhere, according to Census Bureau data released this week.

At the same time, domestic migration last year reached its lowest level since the government began tracking it, the Census Bureau said, citing a separate study of 100,000 Americans.

Similar Michigan data will be released later this year. The national development reflects the lingering effects of the Great Recession, which curbed Americans' mobility.

About 10.5 million Americans changed counties between 2009 and 2010, or about 3.5 percent of the population, the lowest percentage since 1947, when the government first began tracking the numbers, according to census data. About 15.8 million people moved between 2004 and 2005, when the economy was healthy.

The recession and effects of the housing crisis have continued to freeze Americans in place, said Kenneth Johnson, senior demographer at the University of New Hampshire's Carsey Institute.

But in Michigan, where the annual jobless rate was 13.3 percent in 2009, many residents packed up to find work in other states with relatively low unemployment rates, said demographer Kurt Metzger, director of the nonprofit Data Driven Detroit.