Global| Apr 19 2019State Labor Markets in March
|in:Viewpoints
Summary
For a second straight month, state payrolls were little-changed in March. Washington’s robust increase of 27,900 (0.8 percent) was the statistically significant change. However, most states reported gains in jobs. California and Texas [...]
For a second straight month, state payrolls were little-changed in March. Washington’s robust increase of 27,900 (0.8 percent) was the statistically significant change. However, most states reported gains in jobs. California and Texas had (insignificant) gains of more than 20,000. Along with Washington, these three states accounted for nearly one-half the total increase across the states (the sum of the states total of 153,900 was about 40,000 smaller than the national increase. The shortfall mostly reflected differences in the not-seasonally adjusted job movements). There has been some speculation that the floods in the Midwest may have held down job growth in the affected states. Indeed, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa reported small declines, but Missouri clocked an increase. The March story for 12-month changes in jobs was much the same as in February. Once again, Nevada, with a 3.4 percent gain, was the clear winner. As was the case for the preliminary February numbers, a total of 22 states had statistically significant job growth over the prior 12 months. As usual, growth was higher in the West, with Florida and West Virginia being the only Eastern states with job gains above 2 percent. No state (or DC) reported a loss, though the gains of less than 1,000 in Louisiana and Nebraska rounded down to percentage changes of zero.
As has been evident for some months, unemployment rates are fairly uniform and low across the nation. Small (in population, not land area) states are the exception: Alaska at 6.5 percent, DC at 5.6 percent, North Dakota and Vermont at 2.3, and Iowa and New Hampshire at 2.4. Every other state reports an unemployment rate in the 2.8 to 5.1 percent range.
Puerto Rico remains mired. The island’s job count ticked down in March (private sector jobs did edge up a little bit), and the unemployment rate, which has been on a downtrend, moved up from 8.5 to 8.8 percent, even as the labor force fell.
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.