Jobs
The State With the Highest Unemployment in America
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Joblessness in America was near a post-World War II low in July. The figure dropped to 3.5% as the economy added 528,000 jobs. All of the jobs taken away by the COVID-19 pandemic have been replaced. It is a far cry from the 20.5 million jobs lost in April 2020 as the unemployment rate soared to 14.7%. That rate was the highest since the Great Depression.
Job levels are not uniform by either city or state. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has just released its STATE EMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT — JULY 2022. It showed that unemployment dropped in 14 states and the District of Columbia compared to the previous month. The figure rose in three states and was approximately flat in the rest.
Two Midwest states had the lowest unemployment rate. In Minneapolis, the figure was 1.8%, which means virtually everyone had a job. The figure was 2% in Nebraska. This was the same level in Vermont and Utah.
The state with the highest unemployment rate was Alaska at 4.5%. It is among the smallest states by population. Unemployment levels were followed by the largest state by the total population measure. In California, the jobless rate was 3.9%. Since virtually none of the industries in the two states overlap, there is no common reason.
The number of people without jobs in Alaska was 16,424. The comparable number for California was 758,660. Of these, 249,407 were in the LA metro area. The city by itself had a jobless count that was just below that of the third largest state by population, Florida. This figure for Florida was 283,449. Texas is the second largest state by population. The number of people out of jobs there in July was 587,862.
Carolina’s employment problem combines the figure for its largest city with that of a number of smaller cities inland. In June, the jobless rate in Los Angeles was 4.6%. The inland city with the highest unemployment was El Centro at 13%. Several other cities in this region had jobless figures near or above 5%.
There is an assumption that the jobless rate will rise in a recession. If so, some California cities face difficult problems.
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