Date: January 3, 2018

The Bureau of Labour Statistics reported that, “Unemployment rates were lower in November in 290 states, higher in 69 states and stable in 29 states when compared to last year. There were 104 areas  with jobless rates of less than 3% while only 2 areas had rates of at least 10%.” In addition, “Nonfarm payroll employment increased in 54 states in November 2018 and was essentially unchanged in 334 states. Over the year, the national employment rate was 3.5%, not seasonally adjusted, down from 3.9%,” as stated by the BLS.

Metropolitan Area Unemployment (Not Seasonally Adjusted)

Notably, Ames, IA recorded the lowest unemployment rates in November, 1.2% while El Centro, CA, and Yuma, AZ  had the highest jobless rate, 18.1% and 14.9% respectively. In total, 198 states had unemployment rates lower than the U.S. figure of 3.5 percent, 176 states had rates exceeding that, while 14 states had rates of the same as that reported for the nation.

The BLS stated, “The largest over-the-year unemployment rate decrease occurred in Ocean City, NJ (-3.4 percentage points). There were 55 additional areas had rate decreases of at least 1.0 percentage point. Kokomo, IN, had the largest over-the-year rate increase in November (+5.1 percentage points).”

Of the metropolitan areas, Minneapolis-St. Paul Bloomington, MN-WI recorded the lowest unemployment rate in November of 2%. On the other hand,  Cleveland-Elyria, OH, and Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise, NV reported the highest jobless rates among the large areas of 4.4%  each. Furthermore, 39 states had over-the-year unemployment rate decreases, 8 with increases and 4 remained unchanged. The states of Buffalo-Cheektowaga-Niagara Falls, NY (-1.6 percentage points), and Rochester, NY (-1.5 points) had the largest decreases and Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO (+0.5 percentage point) experienced the largest over-the-year rate increase.

Metropolitan Division Unemployment (Not Seasonally Adjusted)

Framingham, MA, and San Francisco-Redwood City-South San Francisco, CA had the lowest rate among the divisions of 2.1% each while Tacoma-Lakewood, WA had the largest division rate of 4.9% for the month of November 2018.

The BLS further noted, “In November, 33 metropolitan divisions had over-the-year unemployment rate decreases, 4 had increases, and 1 had no change. The largest rate declines occurred in Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall, FL, and Nassau County-Suffolk County, NY (-1.3 percentage points each). The largest over-the-year rate increase was in Elgin, IL (+0.5 percentage point).”

Metropolitan Area Nonfarm Employment (Not Seasonally Adjusted)

There were 54 metropolitan areas with over-the-year increases in nonfarm payroll employment and 334 remained the same. Houston The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX (+114,400), New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA (+113,000) and Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX (+94,700) were the states that had the highest over-the-year employment increases. Also, the BLS mentioned, “The largest over-the-year percentage gains in employment occurred in Reno, NV (+5.9%), Midland, TX (+5.7%), and Colorado Springs, CO (+5.0%).

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