Unemployment Drops Below 3% in 10 States

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 11, 11:24PM EST · Published May 19, 7:50AM EDT

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Unemployment Drops Below 3% in 10 States — © Thinkstock

If economists say full employment is 5%, then 10 states are filled to overflowing. Each has a jobless rate under 3%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

The national unemployment rate was 3.9% in April, the lowest it has been in almost 20 years. The economic theory about employment is that enough people move from job to job that 0% is unemployment is impossible. Many unemployed people are in and out of their jobs in a matter of weeks or even days. However, in some states the number is approaching zero, and, as has been pointed out frequently, this can cause a serious shortage of workers.

The states with particularly low joblessness are Colorado at 2.9%, Hawaii at 2.0%, Idaho at 2.9%, Iowa at 2.8%, Maine at 2.7%, Nebraska at 2.8%, New Hampshire at 2.6%, North Dakota at 2.6%, Vermont at 2.5% and Wisconsin at 2.8%.

Based on population, most of these states are small. Vermont, North Dakota, South Dakota, New Hampshire and Maine are among the bottom 10 states in population size.

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The states also tend to be geographically grouped, but it is hard to come by a single explanation for this.

More BLS comment on state population:

Unemployment rates were lower in April in 4 states and stable in 46 states and the District of Columbia, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Twelve states had jobless rate decreases from a year earlier and 38 states and the District had little or no change. The national unemployment rate edged down from March to 3.9 percent and was 0.5 percentage point lower than in April 2017.

Nonfarm payroll employment increased in 3 states in April 2018 and was essentially unchanged in 47 states and the District of Columbia. Over the year, 28 states added nonfarm payroll jobs, 1 state lost jobs, and 21 states and the District were essentially unchanged.

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Also:

Twenty-eight states had over-the-year increases in nonfarm payroll employment in April. The largest job gains occurred in California (+356,800), Texas (+332,300), and Florida (+178,400). The largest percentage gain occurred in Nevada (+3.4 percent), followed by Idaho and Utah (+3.3 percent each). North Dakota lost jobs over the year (-7,900, or -1.8 percent).

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.