Global| Dec 20 2019State Labor Markets in November
|in:Viewpoints
Summary
State labor markets had mixed results in November, with some weak results offsetting a number of strong showings. Somewhat surprisingly, in light of the strong national results, only 6 states reported statistically significant gains [...]
State labor markets had mixed results in November, with some weak results offsetting a number of strong showings. Somewhat surprisingly, in light of the strong national results, only 6 states reported statistically significant gains in payroll employment, with Michigan having the largest percentage change (.6 percent, certainly heavily influenced by the end of the General Motors strike), and Texas having the largest numerical gain. A fair number of states reported drops in their job count, with Illinois experiencing a statistically significant one (17,200, or .3 percent). Over the past 12 months Utah was once again the leader in job growth, up 3.2 percent and, as has been usual, Western states were in the top ranks, with Florida, up 2.5 percent the only Eastern state in the high growth group. Once again, Western states were typically the leaders in job growth, though Florida’s 2.6 percent gain ranked second. Wyoming and Oklahoma have shed some jobs over the past year, and a belt of states stretching from New Jersey to North Dakota have seen job gains of 1.0 percent or less since November 2018.
In the household survey figures Alaskan was again the highest but, remarkably, its 6.1 percent is the lowest ever recorded for the current series, which starts in 1976! Clearly, the Alaskan labor market is very different from those in other states. Elsewhere, Mississippi’s rate rose from 5.5 to 5.6 percent, and West Virginia from 4.8 to 4.9 percent. The vast majority of states—including all of the largest—had unemployment rates between 2.5 and 4.4 percent.
Puerto Rico had another poor month, with the number of jobs on the island falling more than 8,000, the unemployment rate rising to 7.9 percent, and the labor force and number of residents employed dropping.
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.