The US Bureau of Labor Statistics released on April 27th 2015 its preliminary data on unemployment. On the national level the unemployment rate is still at 5.4%. By regions, the Midwest had the lowest unemployment rate, 5.0% The Western region had the highest rate at 5.8%. The highest rates of unemployment were in Nevada and the District of Columbia, 7.1% and 7.5% correspondingly. Unemployment rate rose .4 percentage points to 3.1% in North Dakota, which registered a rate of 2.7% one year ago. On the other hand, largest percentage changes over the year were in Michigan which decreased its unemployment rate by -2.1 %, and both Kentucky and Rhode Island where the decrease in the unemployment rate was of -2%.
The largest over-the-month decrease occurred in New York, -14,700, followed by Missouri with -5,700. The largest increase from March to April 2015 happened in California which experimented +29,500 jobs gains, Pennsylvania and Florida with +27,000 and +24,500 jobs gains respectively. For the case of New York City and Los Angeles, some scholars at the Brookings Institute are suggesting that population growth in both states has slowed down in the recent years, which may be affecting level of employment and unemployment statistics for those states.
Employment level increased significantly in California where 457K new positions were created. Gains in employment over the year were in Construction, 6.4%, Leisure and hospitality 3.4%, and Education with 2.9%. Texas, where roughly 287K workers found a new job, showed the largest increase in Leisure and hospitality with 4.9% change from the previous year. Construction increased 3.9% from April 2014 in Texas. The third place in job creation went to Florida where approximately 277K jobs were added. There, the industries that pulled up job creation were Construction with 8.2%, Leisure and hospitality and Professional Business with 5.2% and 4.6% respectively.
Categories: Macroeconomics
1 reply »