Release date: November 2011

Employment may be on the road to recovery with the majority of markets showing signs of growth. Job creation is critical for a sustained economic and housing recovery as it boosts confidence to make large purchases, and it undermines the factors that cause delinquency and foreclosures.

October 2011 Highlights

Unemployment
• The U.S. unemployment rate was down slightly in October at 9.0% and is down from 9.7% a year ago.
• State by state, the pattern was somewhat different but most states saw similar trends. 36 states and the District of Columbia saw the unemployment rate improve in the past month; an additional 9 states saw no increase. From one month ago, Alabama, Michigan, and Minnesota had the biggest improvement, each seeing a 0.5% drop in the unemployment rate.
• Since October one year ago, 40 states have had an improvement in the unemployment rate. New Mexico—now at 6.6% from 8.6%—had the largest improvement in this period followed by Florida and Nevada where the improvement was 1.5% each.
• In October, North Dakota, Nebraska, and South Dakota had the lowest unemployment rates—all under 5%. At the same time, 10 states and D.C. had double-digit unemployment rates.

Payroll Jobs
• 45 states and the District of Columbia had positive job growth in the last year, and 39 states and D.C. had positive job growth in October—a time when net job growth was about 80,000 jobs for the nation. The average change among states was a 0.2% increase, in line with the historic average of national payroll job growth each month of 0.1% to 0.2%.
• The greatest job growth in October was in Delaware, while Wisconsin had the largest job decline (both as a share of previous payrolls).
• Moving forward, increasing labor force participation may keep the unemployment rate high even as jobs are being added.