State Employment Trends

November 2011National Association of REALTORS®Research DivisionCompilation of Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Data Highlights• The US unemployment rate was down slightly in October at

9.0 percent and is down from 9.7 percent a year ago.• State by state, the pattern was somewhat different but most

states saw similar trends. 36 states and DC saw the unemployment rate improve in the month; an additional 9 saw no increase. From one month ago, Alabama, Michigan, and Minnesota had the biggest improvement each seeing a 0.5 percent drop in the unemployment rate.

• Since October one year ago, 40 states have had an improvement in the unemployment rate. New Mexico—now at 6.6 percent from 8.6 percent—had the largest improvement in this period followed by Florida and Nevada where the improvement was 1.5 percent each.

• In October, North Dakota, Nebraska, and South Dakota had the lowest unemployment rates—all under 5 percent. At the same time, 10 states and the District of Columbia had double-digit unemployment rates.

More Highlights and Outlook

• 45 states and the District of Columbia had positive job growth in the last year, and 39 states and D.C. had positive job growth in October—a time when net job growth was about 80,000 jobs for the nation. The average change among states was a 0.2% increase, in line with the historic average of national payroll job growth each month of 0.1% to 0.2%.

• The greatest job growth in October was in Delaware, while Wisconsin had the largest job decline (both as a share of previous payrolls).

• Moving forward, increasing labor force participation may keep the unemployment rate high even as jobs are being added.

• The following slides show state-level detail of unemployment rates and payroll employment.