Global| Jan 24 2020State Labor Markets in December
|in:Viewpoints
Summary
Only three states were considered to have statistically significant changes (all increases) in payroll employment in November: Texas, Washington, and Arkansas. 32 states (including here Washington DC) had nonsignificant point [...]
Only three states were considered to have statistically significant changes (all increases) in payroll employment in November: Texas, Washington, and Arkansas. 32 states (including here Washington DC) had nonsignificant point increases, while 16 saw nonsignificant declines (though it is a bit surprising that Kentucky's 5,400 decline, Missouri's 8,500 loss, and Pennsylvania's 9,700 fell below the standards for statistical significance. On the other side, Wisconsin's pickup of 9,800 jobs was also not considered to be significant.) In general, the state reports had a bit softer tone than the national release: the aggregate increase in jobs across the states was an unimpressive 114,000, compared to the national figure of 145,000.
Utah was the only state to see job growth above 3% over the 12 months ending in December. Five states (Iowa, Oklahoma, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming) lost jobs over the course of 2019—at least according to this preliminary report (the annual benchmark revision to the state labor market numbers will be released in early March). In general, states in the Middle West (ranging a bit west to Montana and Wyoming, and east to Pennsylvania and New Jersey) and the Ohio- Mississippi Valley saw low growth; states in the West saw notably larger gains. Unemployment rates are generally low. Alaska is again the high outlier, at 6.1%, with Mississippi, DC, and West Virginia also having rates with 5 handles. Vermont and Utah were tied for the lowest rate, at 2.3%. The vast majority of states have unemployment rates between 2.5% and 4.5%, though among larger states, Virginia's 2.6% and Pennsylvania's 4.5% are noticeable on the low and high sides.
Puerto Rico's report was very discouraging. Losses in jobs bought the total below its year-earlier figure, and the unemployment rate shot up from 7.9% to 8.4%, despite a marked drop in the labor force (resident employment fell by more than 13,000).
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.