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David Cooper at the Economic Policy Institute
analyzes the latest
state jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He labels it "A Few Green Shoots in the April State Jobs Report, Mostly Just Mud":
The April State Employment and Unemployment report, released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, showed most states are still plodding along with job growth sufficient to slowly bring down unemployment rates. A few states, particularly on the west coast, are showing more robust signs of improvement. At the same time, the states that had seen strong job growth from the oil and gas boom of the past few years may have cooled somewhat in recent months.
Between January and April, 38 states and the District of Columbia added jobs, with Maine (+1.3 percent), South Dakota (+1.1 percent), South Carolina (+1.1 percent), Nevada (+1.0 percent), and Oregon (+1.0 percent) making the largest percentage gains. These states more than doubled the average pace of growth for the country over the same period (+0.4 percent). Oregon and its neighbor to the north, Washington, have had the second and third largest percentage gains in the country, respectively, over the past year. [...]
Now nearly 6 years into recovery, 36 states and the District of Columbia still have unemployment rates above their pre-recession levels. Although there are stronger signs of improvement in a few parts of the country, there is no reason to think we are anywhere close to a full recovery. Job prospects remain weak for too many job-seekers, especially for young high school and college graduates. Policymakers nationwide, and particularly those at the Federal Reserve, need to keep faster job growth as their number one priority.
As we shall see when the second report on first quarter gross domestic product is released Friday—the consensus being that it will be in negative territory—that plodding isn't likely to change any time soon.