On Wednesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released employment data for 389 metropolitan areas across the United States. In April, unemployment was lower than it was a year ago in 388 metros. The odd city out was Yuma, Arizona, where unemployment bounced up from 11.6% in April 2021 to 13.1% in April 2022. 215 metros had unemployment rates below the national rate of 3.3% (which itself is down from 5.7% a year ago), 16 matched the national unemployment rate, and 158 were higher than the national rate.
South Dakota’s two metros certainly beat the national unemployment rate: in Sioux Falls, joblessness slid from 2.9%% last year April to 1.9% this April, while Rapid City’s jobless rate improved from 3.5% to 2.2%. That puts Sioux Falls in the top 30 and Rapid City in the top 60 for putting people to work.
Most of Minnesota’s metros are outperforming South Dakota’s. Rochester and Mankato–North Mankato led the nation with the lowest metro unemployment rate of 1.3%. The Twin Cities tie with Ames, Iowa, with the next-best unemployment rate of 1.5%. St. Cloud matches Iowa City and Lincoln, Nebraska, at 1.8%. The only Minnesota metro posting higher unemployment than South Dakota’s two big towns is Duluth, where 2.5% of the labor force was looking for work in April (down from 4.5% in April 2021).
South Dakota’s statewide unemployment rate in April was 2.2% That’s good enough to tie for sixth in the nation with Indiana, Iowa, and New Hampshire. But Minnesota leads the nation at 1.6%, followed by Iowa at 1.9%, Utah at 2.0%, and Alabama and Kansas at 2.1%.
USA May numbers: 390,000 jobs added. Hourly earnings rose 5.3%.
The bottom line: Policymakers are attempting a difficult, and potentially impossible, task in trying to cool off inflation pressures without a recession. But things went according to plan in May.
– “If average monthly job creation shifts in the next year from current levels of 500,000 to something closer to 150,000, it will be a sign that we are successfully moving into the next phase of recovery,” President Biden wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this week.
“This kind of job growth is consistent with a low unemployment rate and a healthy economy.”
In that sense, the May numbers are what they hope to see — a gradual deceleration in the labor market, but not a sudden stop.
Means nothing to the person employed very part time or doesn’t have a job.
USA no jobs, no free health care, no free education.
Not smart enough . Cuba offers jobs 95% of everyone, 5% are running small businesses.
That’s why US attacks Cuba constantly. They do better than we do, in spite of the blockade.