Regional Employment Report: Unemployment Rate up in 30 States, Down in 9; Manufacturing States Benefit Most
by ilene - March 10th, 2010 2:39 pm
Regional Employment Report: Unemployment Rate up in 30 States, Down in 9; Manufacturing States Benefit Most
Courtesy of Mish
In a headline trumpeting the wrong thing, Bloomberg is reporting Unemployment Decreased in Nine U.S. States in January.
The unemployment rate decreased in nine U.S. states in January and climbed in 30, signaling the thawing of the labor market is not broad-based.
The jobless rate in Michigan showed the biggest drop, falling to 14.3 percent, still the highest in the nation, from 14.5 percent in December, according to figures issued today by the Labor Department in Washington. New York and New Jersey were among eight states where unemployment decreased by a tenth of a point.
A national unemployment projected to average 9.8 percent this year signals state budgets will be strained by decreases in tax revenue and rising jobless insurance payments. The loss of 8.4 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007 means the labor market in the world’s largest economy will take years to rebound.
“This is a recovery that’s really kind of concentrated,” said Steven Cochrane, director of regional economics at Moody’s Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania. “It still portends weakness in income-tax revenue and sales-tax revenue into fiscal year 2011.”
Unemployment in the Detroit area, home to General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co., dropped to 15.3 percent from 16 percent in December, contributing to the decrease in Michigan’s jobless rate.
States showing the most improvement in coming months will probably be those with a large manufacturing base, said Moody’s Economy.com’s Cochrane. The need to rebuild inventories and growing exports is propelling a factory rebound that will help some parts of the country over others, he said.
Unemployment in California, Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina and the District of Columbia climbed to the highest levels since records began in 1976.
Regional and State Report
With that backdrop let’s take a look at the actual data from the BLS Regional and State Employment and Unemployment Report for January 2010.
Thirty states and the District of Columbia recorded over-the-month unemployment rate increases, 9 states registered rate decreases, and 11 states had no rate change, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the year, jobless rates increased in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The national unemployment rate fell from 10.0 percent in December to 9.7 percent in January, but was up