State Labor Markets in May 2023
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As was the case in the April report, only 5 states saw statistically significant increases in payrolls in May, with Texas gaining 51,000 jobs. Utah has the largest percentage increase: .5. A fair number of states report insignificant decreases.
11 states had statistically significant drops in unemployment from April to May, none larger than .3 percentage point. Nevada’s unemployment rate stayed the highest in the nation at an unchanged 5.4 percent. No other state had a rate more than a point higher than the national 3.7 percent, though DC’s was 5.1 percent. Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, and Wisconsin all have rates more than a point lower than the nation, with New Hampshire and South Dakota both at 1.9 percent. California, Texas, Illinois, Oregon, Washington, and Delaware (along with DC) are the states other than Nevada with rates at or above 4 percent. While the seasonally adjusted state rates are not strictly comparable to the national rate, the relatively high rates in the two largest states help explain why so many states can have rates far below the national average, and only handful somewhat higher.
Puerto Rico’s unemployment rate edged up to 6.1 percent. The job count on the island moved above 950,000 (the initial April count was also above 950,00, but there has been a downward revision). Private employment set a new all-time peak, surpassing the old March 2006 record.
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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