Best way to reduce wordiness: the unemployment rate in their region is lower than the unemployment rate in some other regions?

Question

This is my original sentence:

And it is unfair that some workers are entitled to fewer weeks of benefits simply because the unemployment rate in their region is lower than that in some other regions.

What is the best way to make the part in bold less wordy?

The full thing would read "... simply because the unemployment rate in their region is lower than the unemployment rate in some other regions."

Other options I tried include the following: ... simply because the unemployment rate in their region is

1. lower than in some other regions.

2. lower than elsewhere.

3. lower relative to other regions.

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Background: The country is divided into 62 "regions". These regions have their own unemployment rates. Unemployed workers receive longer duration of unemployment benefits (greater weeks) in regions of higher unemployment. The higher the unemployment rate in the region, the greater is the number of weeks of benefits offered. So workers in region A (where the rate is 6%) will get lower weeks of benefits than workers in region B (where the rate is 7%)

Answer 1

Your example is fine, and probably about as concise as you can get without losing accuracy.

Here's an example of a shorter sentence that is more or less the same, but the imprecision might annoy some readers.

And it is unfair that some workers are entitled to fewer weeks of benefits simply because their unemployment rate is lower than in other regions.

It depends on your intended audience. This is the kind of sentence I might write as a comment on an internet forum like Facebook, or even use in a spoken debate, where it's often important to be concise. I would probably not write it in a formal essay where the extra words are fine.

Answer 2

The shortest rephrasing is the following.

Original:

And it is unfair that some workers are entitled to fewer weeks of benefits simply because the unemployment rate in their region is lower than that in some other regions.

Rephrased:

And it is unfair that some workers are entitled to fewer weeks of benefits simply because their region's unemployment rate is lower.

Answer 3

The challenge with this sentence is that in the beginning of it, you talk about workers, but then use two longish phrases comparing regions and unemployment with no mention of workers. A reader has to glance backwards to remember what's being talked about.

One way around that is to rewrite the entire sentence, not just that phrase, to something like

And it is unfair that workers in a region with low unemployment receive fewer weeks of benefits than workers in a region where unemployment is high.