https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... e-americas
(Bloomberg) -- Employment in nearly one-third of US states remains below pre-pandemic levels, with California and New York registering the steepest declines that likely reflect a pickup in migration to other parts of the country.
In 16 states, a total of more than one million fewer people were employed, based on household data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Maryland and Illinois also had notable decreases in employment since February 2020.
In Los Angeles County alone, the number of employed has fallen 266,500 over the past four years, and in New York City it’s down nearly 133,000.
At the same time, Texas has one million more people working than in February 2020, followed by a nearly 725,000 increase in Florida.
Nationally, the labor market has recovered and more people are working than before the pandemic, but an analysis by industry and geography shows that the job market is very different than it once was.
While the level of employment, as measured by the BLS’s household survey, recovered in 2022, some sectors continue to struggle.
The number of employed in one sweeping category — OPTICS — is about 1.9 million short of 2019 levels, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. That includes workers in office and administrative support; production, transportation and material moving; installation, maintenance and repair; construction and extraction; and sales accounted for about 41% of jobs in 2019.
For about a year after the onset of the pandemic, the supply of labor exceeded demand. But as the economy and businesses opened up after pandemic lockdowns, that reversed and drove up wages while helping to reduce the unemployment rate.
One measure of labor demand, which combines the number of employed workers and number of job openings, remains above a measure of supply that combines the number of employed and unemployed. Still, the gap is narrowing and also showing regional differences.
North Dakota had the lowest jobless rate in February at 2%, followed by South Dakota at 2.1%. California stands in stark contract with a 5.3% unemployment rate, the highest in the nation, followed by Nevada at 5.2% and Illinois and New Jersey both at 4.8%.
In many western states, unemployment is almost a full percentage point higher than it was four years ago. In New York City, the unemployment rate was 5.1% last month, up from 4.3%.
