The overall employment situation in the country continued to improve supported by upward trend in key indicators with an unemployment rate of 5.5%. The jobless rate significantly came down(over the year) in February 2015. In the same month last year, the national average was 6.7%.
The unemployment rate was down by 0.2 percentage points from January which seems to be freely falling owing to massive job creations since the end of last year. Forty six states witnessed a decrease in over the year jobless rates.
Split – State wise(Non farm Payroll Employment & Unemployment)
In total, 26 states in the country saw decrease in unemployment rates from January, 18 states saw no change and 6 states with District of Columbia had increases in February.
Employment
Top 3 States with biggest job gains(Over the month)
1) California (+29,400)
2) Georgia (+25,400)
3) New York (+20,200)
Top 3 States which sizeable job decreases(Over the month)
1) Connecticut (-3,700)
2) Rhode Island (-2,700)
3) West Virginia (-2,400)
Top 3 States with highest percentage increase(Over the month)
1) Kansas (+0.7 percent)
2) South Dakota (+0.7 percent)
3) Utah (+0.7 percent)
Top 3 States with highest percentage decrease(Over the month)
1) Rhode Island (-0.6 percent)
2) Alaska (-0.3 percent)
3) West Virginia (-0.3 percent)
Over the year, all 50 states with District of Columbia performed well with with significant job additions. Utah(+4.2 percent) is the top performer by achieving the highest over the year employment followed by North Dakota (+4.0 percent) and Georgia (+3.8 percent).
Unemployment
- During Feb 2015, Nebraska(2.7 percent) overthrew North Dakota as the numero uno with lowest unemployment rate in the country. North Dakota (2.9 percent) came second.
- At 7.1%, Nevada had the highest numbers of unemployed persons amongst all the states. Overall, District of Columbia was the highest at 7.8%. To sum it up, 13 states in the nation with D.C had jobless rates higher than the national average of 5.5%, rates in 19 states were significantly lower and 18 states hovered around the national average.
- The largest over the month decline in jobless rates occurred in Oregon (-0.5 percentage point). North Dakota recorded significant over the month increase at 0.1 percentage point. All other states remained stable when compared to respective rates in Jan 2015.
- Over the year, 42 states saw significant declines in unemployment rates from the same month in 2014 of which Kentucky and Rhode Island (-2.1 percentage points each) registred the best declines. Louisiana (+1.3 percentage points) recorded the highest increase.
Break Up – Region wise(Non farm Payroll)
In February, Midwest continued to lead by example with lowest unemployment rate of 5.1%. The Western region tanked low at 6.1%. Over the year, rates declined in all the four geographical regions. Region Wise unemployment rates for February 2015 are provided below.
- Midwest – 5.1%
- Northeast – 5.6%
- West – 6.1%
- South – 5.4%
Split By Geographic Division
During this month, West North Central(4.2%) had the lowest unemployment rates among all the nine geographic divisions & the Pacific stood bottom at 6.5%. All the divisions witnessed fall in over the year unemployment rates and the largest decrease occurred in East North Central (-1.6%).