Analyses & Rank-ordering of Job Growth & Decline in the States: January 2008

Attached are my analyses of the January jobs data for the 50 states and Washington DC that were released yesterday by the BLS.

Note that Rhode Island, Vermont and Florida now join long-suffering Michigan having lost jobs yr/yr, with stagnation in job growth in Wisconsin and Ohio.

The Manufacturing sector continues to be the hardest hit yr/yr with only 39 states losing or having no gain in Manufacturing jobs; 31 states lost jobs in Financial Activities including real estate and 28 states lost Construction jobs -- including a -10.5% plunge in Florida.

Private Education and Health Care bureaucracies continue to be the only sector not to have lost jobs in any state – adding significant numbers of jobs in every state except Alaska where the sector’s job count was unchanged. As this year’s Presidential candidates consider ways to eliminate some of the vast waste and price increases in this sector, they might also consider the sector’s essential role accounting for all of the gain in jobs in most states over recent years.

Oil and mineral-rich Utah, Texas and Wyoming continue to have strong job growth with Manufacturing, Finance and Construction each adding jobs yr/yr.

I’ve also attached my tables rank-ordering the states by seasonally-adjusted job growth over the two months from November to January. These tables show that the job slowdown is broad-based among the states and major sectors even as several states continue to show solid job growth. The monthly jobs tables include separate listings for Total Non-farm jobs, Construction, Manufacturing, Financial Activities, Private Education and Health Care and Government.

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PDF icon 8-1-state-jobs.pdf85.93 KB

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