Global| Mar 27 2020State Labor Markets in February
|in:Viewpoints
Summary
State labor markets were generally sound in February, prior to the onset of the pandemic. Texas led the way, with a 50,400 (.4%) rise in payrolls—tops in the absolute gain and trailing only Alaska in percentage change. Michigan and [...]
State labor markets were generally sound in February, prior to the onset of the pandemic. Texas led the way, with a 50,400 (.4%) rise in payrolls—tops in the absolute gain and trailing only Alaska in percentage change. Michigan and Massachusetts also had statistically meaningful increases. Eleven states reported minor declines in payrolls; the rest reported small gains.
Over the twelve months ending in January job growth was weaker in the mid-section of the nation than elsewhere, with six states in that zone seeing a loss of jobs (only West Virginia’s drop was statistically significant). Vermont also experienced a statistically insignificant job drop. Once again, job growth tended to be faster in West, with Utah’s 2.9% increase being the largest.
In the household numbers, Alaska’s unemployment rate moved down to 5.8% (North Dakota’s 2.2% was the lowest in the nation), so in February there was no state with an unemployment rate of 6% or higher. At this juncture, one can only speculate when that might again occur.
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.