The California Employment Development Department reported Friday that the unemployment rate was 5.5 percent last month, up from June’s 5.4 percent rate.
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But the state rate remained well below the preliminary national unemployment rate of 4.9 percent, which matched the June rate and was down four-tenths of a point from 5.3 percent in July 2015.
Meanwhile, the USA preliminary unemployment rate of 4.9 percent in July was unchanged from June and down from 5.3 percent in July 2015.
This year, Michigan’s unemployment rate has continued to move incrementally downward in 2016, sustaining a mostly descending trend recorded since July 2009.
It helped that the ranks of Georgia’s employed climbed by 19,242 from June to July, giving the state a total of 4,639,363 with a job now. This was up from 3.8 percent in June and unchanged from July 2015.
The numbers also show that MA added more jobs a month earlier in June than were in the estimates released a month ago, gaining 17,600 jobs compared to the previously published 16,400 job gain estimate.
Initial claims for unemployment benefits, a proxy for layoffs across the USA, decreased by 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 262,000 in the week ended August 13, the Labor Department said Thursday. Jobs in trade, transportation, and utilities increased 4,000, mostly in retail trade (+3,000). But losses in goods production, including construction, which shed 3,600, jobs, pared total job gains in the private sector.
If you look only at the private sector, July brought 3,000 additional jobs.
Overall, Ohio gained almost 79,000 jobs from July 2015 – July 2016.
Three states had notable rate decreases, the largest of which occurred in IL (-0.4 percentage point). The state has added 374,600 jobs in the last 12 months. The annual addition of 173,000 jobs is substantially below Texas’ five-year average of 301,100 positions.
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Initial jobless claims in the United States fell more than what markets had expected, last week, a sign that the country’s labor market may be recovering after a long halt. Over the year, Leisure and Hospitality added 8,100 (+2.3%) jobs. The statewide figure was 5.5 percent in July. This year, jobs have grown at an annualized pace of 0.3 percent after growing at a 1.3 percent rate in 2015. Mining and logging lost 1,200 jobs, attributed to recent layoffs and closures.
