Global| Oct 18 2019State Labor Markets in September
|in:Viewpoints
Summary
State labor markets were on the soft side in September. Only three states (Hawaii, Idaho, and Kentucky—clearly a group with little in common!) reported statistically significant gains, while two (New Hampshire and Virginia) had [...]
State labor markets were on the soft side in September. Only three states (Hawaii, Idaho, and Kentucky—clearly a group with little in common!) reported statistically significant gains, while two (New Hampshire and Virginia) had statistically significant declines. 22 states report declines in their point estimates of payrolls. Most of the increases, aside from the three just mentioned, look unimpressive (California's 21,300 gain was obviously small relative to the state's size, as was Florida's 11,100, and increases smaller than eight thousand in New York and Texas. This moderation is also evident in the 12-month gains. While all states, and DC, showed some increase in this period, 20 had increases of 1.0 percent or less. Three states, though (Nevada, Idaho, and Utah), had increases of 3.0 percent or more. In general, as has persistently been the case, Western states have shown the strongest gains, though Alabama, Florida, and North Carolina are also fairly high in the ranks. Lower gains were in a broad belt stretching from Massachusetts to Montana, along with Oklahoma and Louisiana.
Breaking with a recent trend, national job growth in September, measured as the sum of changes from the states, was smaller than the figure coming from the national survey. The two totals were 72,500 for the sum of the states vs. the national figure of 136.00.
Unemployment rates were generally little-changed, with many states at all-time lows for the current series. South Carolina had the most striking decline, from 3.2 percent to 2.9 percent. Vermont's rate inched up from 2.1 percent to 2.2 percent, but it remains the national leader. As is seemingly always the case, Alaska is the high state, at 6.2 percent, and Mississippi and DC are the other places with unemployment rates above 5 percent (Arizona slipped to 4.9 percent).
Puerto Rico not only recently dodged the worse of Hurricane Dorian, but also had some respectable labor market news. The island's unemployment rate continues to move down, reaching 7.6 percent in September (aided, however, by a drop in the labor force), while the number of jobs rose by 2,700 to set a new post-Maria high. Private sector employment in Puerto Rico is now higher than it's been since early 2015.
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.