Global| Oct 20 2020State Labor Markets in September
|in:Viewpoints
Summary
State labor market data results in September were somewhat less uniform than in prior months. 30 states had statistically significant drops in their unemployment rates from August to September, with New Jersey's 4.4 percentage-point [...]
State labor market data results in September were somewhat less uniform than in prior months. 30 states had statistically significant drops in their unemployment rates from August to September, with New Jersey's 4.4 percentage-point drop being the largest. 8 states, though, saw statistically significant declines in unemployment, with Hawaii's 2.1 percentage point increase the largest. Unemployment rates in September ranged widely, from South Dakota's 4.1 percent to Hawaii's 15.1. 4 other states—including California—still had unemployment rates above 10 percent.
30 states had statistically significant increases in payrolls in September. New York was the only state to see a gain above 100,000, while New Jersey had the higher percentage gain. 3 states saw statistically significant drops in jobs.
The sharp drop in the national labor force in September was concentrated in three states: New Jersey, New York, and Texas. New York, as well as New Jersey, saw a pronounced drop in its unemployment rate, but Texas's rose by 1.5 percentage points—resident employment is estimated to have fallen by 375,000 in Texas, even though payrolls were up more than 40,000.
Looking at the industry composition, the rebound in leisure and hospitality employment ebbed in most states, though New York and New Jersey. Also, government employment was flat or down in most, though again New York and New Jersey were exceptions.
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.