State Labor Markets in May 2022
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State payrolls were not as strong in May as in recent months. Only 7 states had statistically significant increases, while 3 report declines. Texas had the largest gain (74,200) while West Virginia jobs rose 1.3 percent. On the other side, Alaska shed 4,400 jo15 bs (1.4 percent), Wyoming lost 2,800 (1.0 percent) and Michigan payrolls fell 14,600. Over the last year, Alaska and Wyoming were the only localities that did not show statistically significant job growth (Alaska's point estimate edged down). Both California and Texas had job growth exceeding three-quarters of a million in that period, and Nevada had a 7.1 percent increase. Aside from Alaska and Wyoming, Wisconsin was the only state with job growth under 2 percent.
16 states saw statistically significant drops in their unemployment rate in their unemployment rates in May, with a number (California, Iowa, Missouri, and Rhode Island) reporting declines of .3 percentage points. The range of unemployment rates across the nation continues to narrow. Nebraska continues to have a 1.9 percent rate; the highs continue to be DC (5.7 percent) and New Mexico (5.1 percent), but in both cases May's number was lower than April's.
Puerto Rico's recovery is ongoing, with a small (likely statistically insignificant) increase in payrolls, and the unemployment rate moving down to 6.2 percent.
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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