State Labor Markets in February 2023
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State labor markets in February were mixed. Only 6 states had statistically significant gains in payrolls, with Texas’s 58,200 increase the largest; Hawaii and Utah saw .6 percent increases. Arkansas, Kansas, Maryland, and New Hampshire report insignificant declines.
Nine states had statistically significant declines in their unemployment rates from January to February, while 3—and DC—had increases. None of the moves were larger than .2 percentage points. As was the case in January, the 2.1 percent rates in both Dakotas were the nation’s lowest, while Nevada’s 5.5 percent was far and away the highest (number two was Oregon). The Dakotas, Alabama, DC, Nevada, and Oregon were the only places whose unemployment rates were more than one point different than the national average of 3.6% (Alabama joining the Dakotas on the low side, DC and Oregon high).
Puerto Rico’s job count was virtually unchanged in February, and the island’s unemployment rate was also unchanged at 6.0 percent.
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.