US Labor Dept: Salt Lake City, Indianapolis & Minneapolis Have Lowest MSA Jobless Rates (better, largest)

[18Montclair]

Released Apr 7, 2022

We are just humming along quite nicely on the whole. 5.0% or less is considered 'full employment' by many leading economists and most of the country is either less than 5 or right in the 5 percent range, Cleveland is the only large MSA that is struggling at the moment as far as jobless rates, but to be honest, that's not too bad compared to the past. Hopefully this momentum will continue.

Feb 2022 Large Metro Area Unemployment Rate:
2.2% Salt Lake City
2.4% Indianapolis
2.4% Minneapolis
2.7% Nashville
2.8% Birmingham
2.8% Jacksonville
2.9% Oklahoma City
2.9% Tampa
3.0% Miami
3.0% Raleigh
3.0% San Jose
3.1% Phoenix
3.2% Atlanta
3.2% Richmond
3.3% Austin
3.4% Orlando
3.4% San Francisco
3.4% Virginia Beach
3.5% Louisville
3.6% Washington DC
3.7% Boston
3.7% Charlotte
3.7% Columbus
3.7% Kansas City
3.7% Milwaukee
3.7% Seattle
3.7% St Louis
3.8% Cincinnati
3.9% Portland
4.0% Denver
4.0% San Diego
4.1% Denver
4.1% Rochester
4.2% Baltimore
4.3% Sacramento
4.5% New Orleans
4.7% Buffalo
4.7% Memphis
4.7% Philadelphia
4.7% Providence
4.9% Chicago
4.9% Los Angeles
5.0% Hartford
5.0% Riverside
5.1% New York
5.1% Pittsburgh
5.3% Houston
5.3% Las Vegas
5.4% Detroit
6.4% Cleveland

https://www.bls.gov/web/metro/laulrgma.htm

[ClevelandBrown]

Looking at how close metros are to pre-pandemic levels (I'm using December 2019) is probably a better measurement than unemployment rank. The February job totals are preliminary but should be official in a couple weeks once the preliminary March numbers are released.

This is how close to those December 2019 employment numbers each are:

1. Austin - 6.08%
2. Raleigh - 3.02%
3. Dallas - 2.73%
4. Jacksonville - 2.32%
5. Tampa - 2.23%
6. Nashville - 1.81%
7. Salt Lake City - 1.61%
8. Riverside - 1.29%
9. Atlanta - 0.69%
10. Phoenix - 0.60%
11. Charlotte - 0.39%
12. San Antonio - 0.18%

13. Sacramento - -0.27%
14. Denver - -0.79%
15. Houston - -0.84%
16. Indianapolis - -0.94%
17. Miami - -1.30%
18. Orlando - -1.35%
19. Memphis - -1.89%
20. San Diego - -2.24%
21. Birmingham - -2.36%
22. Columbus - -2.80%
23. Las Vegas - -2.82%
24. Oklahoma City - -2.87%
25. Louisville - -3.14%
26. Seattle - -3.23%
27. San Jose - -3.25%
28. Portland - -3.70%
29. Washington D.C. - -3.76%
30. Kansas City - -4.05%
31. Los Angeles - -4.11%
32. Philadelphia - -4.17%
33. St. Louis - -4.26%
34. Baltimore - -4.38%
35. Richmond - -4.44%
36. Virginia Beach - -4.47%
37. Cincinnati - -4.65%
38. Chicago - -4.68%
39. Cleveland - -4.91%
40. San Francisco - -5.07%
41. Boston - -5.09%
41. Detroit - -5.09%
43. Providence - -5.29%
44. Minneapolis - -5.84%
45. Rochester - -6.02%
46. Milwaukee - -6.12%
47. Hartford - -6.16%
48. New York City - -6.81%
49. New Orleans - -6.98%
50. Pittsburgh - -7.32%
51. Buffalo - -7.92%

Riverside, Houston and Las Vegas all rank low in unemployment percentage, but high in actual job gains, all three are in the top half of getting back to pre-pandemic levels, with Riverside already being above 100 percent ... Houston will likely be there in March and Las Vegas in the next couple of months. Taking an educated guess, what is happening there is since those all have been high growth areas, population growth may be exceeding what looks to be solid job growth.

In the case of Cleveland, my guess there is that the high unemployment rate is partly a reflection on the stagnant Akron job market, where a chunk of the job growth in Cleveland is due to people from Summit or Portage counties taking jobs in the Cleveland metro. Akron is not listed on the above link for unemployment, but if you expand job growth since December 2019, the Akron metro ranks 96th out of 100 in percent growth (9.70%) and it ranks 99th out of 100 in terms of how close it is to its pre-pandemic level (-8.07%).

Just looking at year-over-year (Feb. 2021 to Feb. 2022), Cleveland ranks No. 35 out of 51 over 1 million in total job growth at 33.1K. It's the No. 35 largest MSA with Nashville (66.1K), San Jose (62.9K), Jacksonville (38.9K) and Raleigh (34.9K) passing it. Cleveland though is above Pittsburgh (29.8K), Kansas City (29.4K), Columbus (25.4K) and Cincinnati (21.5K).

Percentage wise, it ranks 39th out of the 51 over 1 million at 3.31%, ahead of some Great Lakes/Midwest/Rust Belt peers such as St. Louis (3.05%), Kansas City (2.83%), Pittsburgh (2.75%), Minneapolis (2.43%), Columbus (2.36%), Cincinnati (2.03%), Milwaukee (1.73%).

Again, Akron's year-over-year numbers are horrible. It ranks 100th out of 100 in both total gains (.16K) and percent growth (0.19%). That's a reversal from say 10 years ago when the Akron metro (due to growth in the northern Summit/Portage suburbs) was outpacing Cleveland in percentage gains.

[SteelCityRising]

Wow. I am surprised at how high Pittsburgh's unemployment rate is considering many employers here, including my own, are desperate for workers. I am guessing suburban Fayette County really drags us down.

[Duderino]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

Wow. I am surprised at how high Pittsburgh's unemployment rate is considering many employers here, including my own, are desperate for workers. I am guessing suburban Fayette County really drags us down.

Could also be a function of some folks being pickier about their options and taking their time before committing to a new job, which would track with a high number of openings.

[Taggerung]

Damn, Cleveland and Detroit can't catch a break.