State Labor Markets in January 2022
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State payroll were generally modestly changed in January. Only 9 states reported statistically significant increases from December; the rest did not statistically significant moves of any size (the sum of the state increases was only 340,000, compared to the 481,000 increase reported in the national survey). California (53,600), New York (36,800), Pennsylvania (20,000), Georgia (19,400), and Ohio (18,600) had the largest increases, while Kansas and Maine had boosts of .6 percent.
Virtually all states saw job growth over the last 12 months. California picked up well over 1 million jobs; Nevada saw a 10.3 percent increase. Job gains were most notable from Texas west and in parts of the Northeast as well as Michigan and Florida; job growth was soft in the Plains.
19 states saw statistically significant drops in their unemployment rates in January (none larger than .3 percentage point), while Connecticut and DC saw increases of .2 percentage point. The range of unemployment across the nation has narrowed, in part reflecting revisions to recent numbers announced on March 2 (for instance, New Jersey's unemployment rate was reduced about 1 percentage point). Aside from DC's 6.3 percent, the highest rate in January was New Mexico's 5.9 percent, and Nebraska and Utah's 2.2 percent were the lowest. 10 states set new unemployment record lows.
Puerto Rico's unemployment rate fell from 7.5 percent in December to 7.1 percent in January, setting another new record low. The island's job count grew 7,600, and is now higher than its pre-Maria level, though still more than 150,000 under its 2005 peak. Gains over the past year have been most evident in retailing and leisure and hospitality, perhaps reflecting revived tourism.
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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