Global| Jun 15 2018State Labor Markets Mirror National Strength in May
|in:Viewpoints
Summary
State data show continued brisk job growth in May. The sum of the seasonally adjusted gains in payroll employment across the states came to 269,300—quite comparable to the national increase of 223,000. However, most states did not [...]
State data show continued brisk job growth in May. The sum of the seasonally adjusted gains in payroll employment across the states came to 269,300—quite comparable to the national increase of 223,000. However, most states did not report statistically significant increases in their job counts. Texas had the largest absolute gain (34,700) while West Virginia saw a 1.4 percent increase. Aside from Texas, other large states with significant gains were Ohio, North Carolina, and Michigan. Only 4 states reported (small and statistically insignificant) declines: Louisiana, Oklahoma, Vermont, and Wyoming.
The headline household survey results were more impressive: 14 states reported statistically significant drops in their unemployment rates in May. 10 of these were east of the Mississippi; Arizona, Colorado, Montana, and South Dakota were the Western states with lower unemployment rates. But a closer examination shows that more than a dozen states (including California, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and New Jersey) showed declines in their labor force from April to May. Quite likely all those declines were not statistically significant (though New York, and New Jersey, and Pennsylvania all report having lower labor forces than a year ago), and this time of year, with schools letting out on erratic schedules, seasonal adjusting the labor force figures can be difficult. Still, as was the case for the national data, sluggish labor force growth appears to be making an important contribution to unemployment rate declines.
Over the past year job growth has been particularly strong in a broad band of states running northwest from Florida to Washington, with growth in many places 2.1% or higher. There seems to be a correlation with elevation: Utah, with a 3.4% gain, and Idaho, up 3.1%, led the nation. Alaska and North Dakota are the only states with fewer jobs this May than last year; continuing issues with the energy industries in those states is likely the explanation (rather than a correlation with temperature, though Montana and Minnesota were also on the low side). Alaska, at 7.2%, continues, by a wide margin, to have the highest unemployment rate of any state; Hawaii’s 2.0% is the lowest (perhaps there is something to the temperature story).
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.