State Labor Markets in January 2026
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On balance, state labor markets were fairly stable in January. Several states had statistically significant gains in payrolls, led by California’s 93,500 (.5 percent) surge. In other large states Texas was up 40,100 and Illinois 18,000-both increases of .3 percent. DC was the only significant drop; down 5,400 (.7 percent). Most other states had insignificant gains (these amounted to more than 20,000 in Florida and New York). As one might expect, most of the DC job loss was in government.
The only state to experience a statistically significant change in its unemployment rate was Florida, which saw a .2 percentage point gain. The highest unemployment rates were in DC (6.7%), California (5.4%), Delaware (5.4%), Nevada (5.3%), New Jersey (5.2%), Oregon (5.2%), Michigan (5.0%), and Washington (5.0%). Alabama, Hawaii, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Vermont had unemployment rates below 3.0%, with Hawaii and South Dakota’s the lowest, both at 2.2%.
Puerto Rico’s unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.7% and the island’s job count edged down 400.
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.
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