State jobless rate holds steady at 4%

Arkansas, U.S. joblessness rates
Arkansas, U.S. joblessness rates

The unemployment rate in Arkansas in November remained unchanged at 4 percent compared with October, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday.

The national unemployment rate was 4.6 percent in November.

At 4 percent, Arkansas had the 14th-lowest unemployment rate in the country, tied with Montana.

It was the third-straight month Arkansas' unemployment rate was at 4 percent, said Susan Price with the Arkansas Department of Workforce Services.

"A 4 percent unemployment rate is very good," said Greg Kaza, executive director of the Arkansas Policy Foundation in Little Rock. "We should enjoy it while it lasts."

There were about 13,600 more Arkansans in the labor force last month than in November last year, 24,260 more people employed and 10,650 fewer Arkansans who were unemployed, the bureau said.

"All the numbers are moving the right way," said Jeff Cooperstein, an economist at the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.

With the low unemployment rate, the state's economy is pretty stable, Cooperstein said.

"We're at a very low unemployment rate," Cooperstein said. "The key thing with a low unemployment rate is to see what's happening with job creation. Are people entering the workforce and getting hired?"

Sometimes when people re-enter the workforce, it causes the unemployment rate to tick up, Cooperstein said.

"But as people are re-entering the workforce or entering it for the first time [in Arkansas], they're being absorbed, which is a good thing," Cooperstein said.

On a monthly comparison, from October to November, there were declines in the labor force, employment and the number of employed, said Michael Pakko, chief economist at the Institute for Economic Advancement at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

"There is at least beginning to be a slowdown in employment growth," Pakko said.

Still, Arkansas remains one of 16 states with a statistically lower unemployment rate than the country's, Pakko said.

Compared with November last year, six business sectors had increases in nonfarm payroll jobs and five had declines.

The professional and business services sector added 5,800 jobs for the year.

"That continues to be the strong performer in our state's economy," Pakko said. It's a broad sector, covering everything from lawyers to secretaries, he said.

The educational and health services sector also added 5,800 jobs since November last year.

"For a long time, the educational and health services sector was leading the pack," Pakko said. "That has slowed a little bit."

The trade, transportation and utilities sector lost 2,800 jobs in the previous 12 months. But the sector has done very well since June 2009, increasing 7.5 percent since the end of the recession and the beginning of the economic expansion, Kaza said.

Retail trade, a component of the trade, transportation and utilities sector, is down about 2.5 percent from November last year, Pakko said.

"At least part of that is the changing nature of the retail environment," Pakko said. "In the holiday season, we would ordinarily be seeing increases in retail employment. And we have seen big increases in retail employment in a trend sense. But even if retailers are expecting a strong holiday shopping season, a larger share of that is taking place through Internet sales.

"We're comparing last Christmas season with this year and it's taking less workers to accommodate the holiday rush."

New Hampshire and South Dakota had the lowest unemployment rates in the country at 2.7 percent each, followed by North Dakota and Massachusetts at 2.9 percent each and Hawaii at 3.0 percent.

Alaska had the highest unemployment rate at 6.8 percent, followed by New Mexico at 6.7 percent, Louisiana at 6.2 percent, West Virginia at 6.0 percent and Alabama at 5.9 percent.

Business on 12/17/2016

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