Global| May 17 2019State Labor Markets in April
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Summary
State payrolls were, like the national figure, generally strong in April. Ten states had statistically significant gains, led in absolute numbers by California (46,000) and in percentage terms by Rhode Island (.8%) . A handful of [...]
State payrolls were, like the national figure, generally strong in April. Ten states had statistically significant gains, led in absolute numbers by California (46,000) and in percentage terms by Rhode Island (.8%) . A handful of states did report point declines; Georgia, with a somewhat startling drop of 14,900 (.3 percent) was the only one that was statistically significant. Over the last 12 months the story of good growth over most of the nation, with some tilt toward the West, continues. Nevada and Utah were the states with job growth of 3 percent or higher. Florida was the one state in the eastern half of the nation with job growth ab0ve 2.0 percent in this period. All states, and DC, report more jobs in April 2019 than in April 2018.
Unemployment rates continue to converge, at low levels, across the nation. Alaska remains the one noticeable outlier on the high side, at 6.5% (DC is at 5.6%--while DC is not, of course, a state, its labor market is a bit bigger than Alaska’s). New Mexico, was at 5.0%. West Virginia edged down to 4.9%--its first time under 5 percent since November 2008. Mississippi and Arizona were also at 4.9%. Vermont has the lowest unemployment rate—an incredible 2.2% (according to the seasonally adjusted count, that’s 7,565 people, There may not be more cows than people in Vermont, but they surely outnumber the state’s unemployed). North Dakota’s rate was 2.3%. Every other state had a rate between 2.4% and 4.7%.
Charles Steindel
AuthorMore in Author Profile »Charles Steindel has been editor of Business Economics, the journal of the National Association for Business Economics, since 2016. From 2014 to 2021 he was Resident Scholar at the Anisfield School of Business, Ramapo College of New Jersey. From 2010 to 2014 he was the first Chief Economist of the New Jersey Department of the Treasury, with responsibilities for economic and revenue projections and analysis of state economic policy. He came to the Treasury after a long career at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he played a major role in forecasting and policy advice and rose to the rank of Senior Vice-President. He has served in leadership positions in a number of professional organizations. In 2011 he received the William F. Butler Award from the New York Association for Business Economics, is a fellow of NABE and of the Money Marketeers of New York University, and has received several awards for articles published in Business Economics. In 2017 he delivered Ramapo College's Sebastian J. Raciti Memorial Lecture. He is a member of the panel for the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's Survey of Professional Forecasters and of the Committee on Research in Income and Wealth. He has published papers in a range of areas, and is the author of Economic Indicators for Professionals: Putting the Statistics into Perspective. He received his bachelor's degree from Emory University, his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and is a National Association for Business Economics Certified Business EconomistTM.