REGIONAL AND STATE EMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT: JUNE 2004

[papau]

Today's Bush DOL news - after distributing those 1.5 million new jobs we got nationally over the past year around the states (including the 800,000 new jobs that are pretend - or shall we say estimates of new at home employment that has not hit the payroll tax yet!!??) we find that everyone is better off this year than last (of course we still are missing over a million jobs that existed when Bush took office - but I do not expect our whore media to mention that)

June June
2003 2004p
Northeast........... 27,398.2 27,501.3
South............... 51,222.0 51,740.5

Midwest............. 34,308.6 34,363.2
West................ 33,249.6 33,709.6

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.nr0.htm

Tuesday, July 20, 2004


REGIONAL AND STATE EMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT: JUNE 2004


Regional and state unemployment rates were generally little hanged in June. All 4 regions and 40 states recorded shifts of 0.3 percentage point or less in their unemployment rates from May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Over the year, unemployment rates declined in all 4 regions and 47 states. The national jobless rate remained at 5.6 percent in June. Nonfarm payroll employment rose in 41 states over the month.

Regional Unemployment (Seasonally Adjusted)

Among the four regions, the South reported the lowest unemployment rate, 5.0 percent in June, as it has for nine consecutive months. The West again registered the highest rate, 5.8 percent, which it has done in virtually every month since 1992. All four regions posted over-the-year jobless rate declines: the South and West, -0.9 percentage point each; the Midwest, -0.6 point; and the Northeast, -0.4 point. (See table 1.)

In June, the West North Central and South Atlantic divisions registered the lowest unemployment rates among the nine geographic divisions, 4.5 and 4.6 percent, respectively. The Pacific division again recorded the highest unemployment rate, 6.2 percent. Over the month, unemployment rates were little changed in most divisions. The largest changes were a 0.3-percentage point decrease in the rate for the East South Central division and a 0.3-point increase in the rate for the Middle Atlantic. Compared with June 2003, jobless rates were lower in all nine divisions, with the largest decreases in the West South Central (-1.1 percentage points) and East South Central and Mountain divisions (-1.0 point each).

State Unemployment (Seasonally Adjusted)

Hawaii and North Dakota reported the lowest unemployment rates, 3.1 percent each, in June. Eight additional states recorded rates below 4.0 percent. Alaska and Oregon again posted the highest state jobless rates, 7.3 and 6.9 percent, respectively. The District of Columbia registered a rate of 7.1 percent. Overall, seven states--including California and New York, at 6.2 percent each--reported rates above 6.0 percent in June. (See table 3.)

Compared with May, unemployment rates were higher in 20 states, lower in 18 states and the District of Columbia, and unchanged in 12 states. Idaho and Pennsylvania registered the largest over-the-month jobless rate increases (+0.5 percentage point each). The largest rate decreases were in Alabama and Illinois (-0.6 and -0.5 percentage point, respectively).

Unemployment rates were lower than a year earlier in 47 states, higher in 1, and unchanged in 2 states and the District of Columbia. Oregon recorded the largest over-the-year unemployment rate decrease (-1.8 percentage points), followed by Washington (-1.6 points) and Mississippi and Tennessee (-1.5 points each). Thirteen additional states recorded over-the-year jobless rate declines of 1.0 percentage point or more. No state posted an unemployment rate increase from June 2003 larger than 0.4 percentage point.

Nonfarm Payroll Employment (Seasonally Adjusted)

From May to June, total nonfarm employment increased in 41 states and decreased in 9 states and the District of Columbia. The largest employment gains were registered in North Carolina (+35,400), Missouri (+27,600), Pennsylvania (+20,300), California (+12,300), and South Carolina (+12,000). The largest over-the-month percentage increases occurred in Missouri (+1.0 percent), followed by North Carolina (+0.9 percent) and South Carolina (+0.7 percent). The largest employment decreases were reported in Ohio (-14,100), Michigan (-5,400), and Connecticut (-4,200). New Hampshire posted the largest over-the-month percentage decline in employment (-0.4 percent), followed by Connecticut, the District of Columbia, and Ohio (-0.3 percent each), and Montana (-0.2 percent). (See table 5.)

Over the year, employment increased in 46 states and the District of Columbia and decreased in 4 states. The largest over-the-year gains in employment occurred in Florida (+177,700), California (+134,200), Texas (+94,700), and Virginia (+93,300). The largest percentage gains were reported in Nevada (+4.7 percent), Idaho (+2.8 percent), and Arizona, Oregon, and Virginia (+2.7 percent each). States with over-the-year employment decreases were Michigan (-32,900, -0.7 percent), Ohio (-17,600, -0.3 percent), Massachusetts (-15,700, -0.5 percent), and West Virginia (-200, 0.0 percent).

The Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment release for June is scheduled to be issued on July 28. The Regional and State Employment and Unemployment release for July is scheduled to be issued on August 20.

Regional and State Employment and Unemployment Technical Note http://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.tn.htm
Table 1. Civilian labor force and unemployment by census regions and divisions, seasonally adjusted http://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.tn.htm
Table 2. Civilian labor force and unemployment by census regions and divisions, not seasonally adjusted http://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.t02.htm
Table 3. Civilian labor force and unemployment by state and selected areas, seasonally adjusted http://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.t03.htm
Table 4. Civilian labor force and unemployment by state and selected areas, not seasonally adjusted http://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.t04.htm
Table 5. Employees on nonfarm payrolls by state and selected industry division, seasonally adjusted http://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.t05.htm
Table 6. Employees on nonfarm payrolls by state and selected industry division, not seasonally adjusted http://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.t06.htm

Text version of entire news release ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/news.release/laus.txt

[aden_nak]

1. Unemployment Rate Calculation

And remember, the unemployment rate is calculated based on people who go off of Unemployment Benefits. There is no statistical difference, when calculating that rate, between people that find jobs and people whose Unemployment Benefits expire.

[treepig]

4. just like clockwork,

the misperception that the unemployment rate is based on benefits is one the first posts to appear in an umemployment thread.

cool!

[aden_nak]

8. Well. . .

That's how the calculation is done as I have seen it. If I am wrong, perhaps I could be enlightened?

[robcon]

9. You're right, treepig

The misunderstanding - that there is a relationship between unemployment benefits and the unemployment rate - never fails in these threads. Those who are covered by unemployment insurance are almost always less than half of the unemployed.

There is no relationship.

[LiviaOlivia]

2. A Growing Force of Nonworkers

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/18/business/yourmoney/18view.html

July 18, 2004
ECONOMIC VIEW
A Growing Force of Nonworkers
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

WASHINGTON

<snip>
Mr. Bush noted with evident relief that the nation had added 1.5 million jobs since last August. Senator John Kerry and his supporters complain that the country still has about a million fewer jobs than when Mr. Bush took office. But neither statement captures properly the shortfall of jobs that has built up over the last three years. An accurate estimate is not one million but four million, and possibly higher. Consider just one figure. Since June 2000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of adults considered "not in the labor force" - those who don't have jobs and are not looking for them - has grown by about 4.4 million, to 66.6 million.

<snip>
...if workers are being displaced by more fundamental forces, like a growing mismatch between their skills and the needs of the marketplace, the pool of untapped labor could become a cauldron of frustration and resentment.

First, the numbers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the nation added 112,000 payroll jobs in June, for a total of 131.3 million. For those watching Mr. Bush's scorecard on jobs, that total is 1.5 million higher than it was last August, and down 1.2 million from a peak in March 2001. But the recent increases greatly overstate the job growth. The United States adult population has been growing about 1.4 million a year. Even if a third of those extra people don't want jobs - choosing, say, to be stay-at-home parents - the potential work force would still have expanded by more than three million since the start of 2001.

<snip>
Among adults in their prime earning years, ages 25 to 54, the work force participation rate has dropped to 82.8 percent from 83.9 percent in 2000. That may seem a minuscule decline, but it is the lowest rate since 1987, and it translates into millions of people. In June 2000, the Labor Department estimated that 62.2 million people over the age of 20 were "not in the labor force." By this June, the number had jumped to 66.6 million. The extra 4.4 million amounted to more than half of the 8.2 million people officially labeled unemployed.

<snip>

[papau]

3. Very True - Workforce participation is way down from Clinton level

Estimated 12 years to recover if Bush starts getting 300,000 new jobs every month to Clinton Workforce participation level (I believe we down near 2% of population these days).

[whistle]

5. I'm sorry, but when the government claims that over half....

....(800,000 of the 1.5 million) new jobs are based on econometric models of possible employment created by supposedly new small businesses, which in turn are based on contrived estimates, well I'm not going to believe those kinds of numbers. This economic recovery is only temporary. It is based on the Iraq/Afghanistan war mobilization, invasion and now occupation. We are sinking back into an inflationary recession similar to the one that followed the termination of the Vietnam war in 1975. Bush and the republican controlled congress created this mess and it will take Kerry/Edwards to be in the White House and hopefully a bipartisan congress to swallow the economic priorities that will bring effective long term change and prosperity to the U.S. to make us energy independent, keep jobs here in the U.S. and share the burden of these changes across all citizens and businesses.

[Don_G]

6. The Numbers Are Bogus

Don't forget the Secretary of Labor is Elaine Chao---Mitch McConnell's wife.

They would both suffocate if Bush stopped short.

[Robbien]

7. Thom Hartman just played a telephone message he got from

a victim of this employment fiasco. The story she relayed is familiar to us here at DU, but the fear and desperation in her voice breaks ones heart.