These 2 Cities Had an Unemployment Rate of 2.7% Last Month

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Oct 2, 7:04AM EDT

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These 2 Cities Had an Unemployment Rate of 2.7% Last Month — © Richard Schafer / Getty Images

The U.S. unemployment rate in August was 8.5%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The figure was higher than in most months during the Great Recession but well below the figures from May, June and July of this year. It is nowhere close to the historically low rate of 3.5% during much of 2019.

Unemployment rates were up in August compared to the same month in 2019 in 387 of the 389 metropolitan areas and lower in the other two. Thirty-seven cities had jobless rates of less than 5%, and six had rates of 15% or more.

A 5% jobless rate is considered full employment by most economists. This is based on the theory that there are always a small number of people between jobs or entering or exiting the national workforce.

The two cities with the lowest rates were Logan, Utah-Idaho, and Idaho Falls, Idaho, both at 2.7%.
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These cities are in states where the jobless figure is low as well. Utah’s unemployment rate in August was 4.2%. Idaho’s was 3.8%.

Another thing the two cities have in common is that they are extremely small compared to most of the other cities in America. That means the number of people unemployed in each is counted in the thousands. In Logan, the figure is only 1,827.

Utah and Idaho have several advantages over most states in terms of jobs. In Utah, five of the 10 top employers are hospitals or medical systems. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is also a major employer, and the tech industry is another, led by Cisco Systems.

Idaho’s largest employers are in the tech industry, universities, health care centers and the military. The largest employer in the state is Micron Technology. Boise State University is next, followed by the Mountain Home Air Force Base. The University of Idaho and the Idaho Military Department are high on the list.

The employment bases in the lowest unemployment cities are stable, as well as in industries in which layoffs are unlikely. They should continue to enjoy what is better than “full employment.”
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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.