Arkansas jobless rate steady at 4%

Arkansas' unemployment remained unchanged at 4.0 percent in October, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday.

The state's unemployment rate was the 11th lowest in the country, tied with Minnesota and Maine.

The national unemployment rate was 4.9 percent in October.

There were about 30,400 more Arkansans employed in October compared with October last year. Almost 20,000 more Arkansans were in the labor force in October and there were about 10,500 fewer unemployed Arkansans.

From the perspective of a comparison with September, however, October was the fifth consecutive month that the number of employed Arkansans declined, said Michael Pakko, chief economist at the Institute for Economic Advancement at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

There were about 1,800 fewer Arkansans employed in October than in September.

"That followed a long string of monthly increases," Pakko said.

Pakko said at an economic forecast conference this week that he anticipates the state's unemployment to be 4.1 percent for the year and remain below 4.5 percent over the next two years.

The unemployment rate is a good indicator of where the economy is going, Pakko said at the conference.

One surprising statistic on Friday, said Kathy Deck, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, is that all year the number of unemployed people in Arkansas has continued to decline by about a 20 percent annual rate.

The decline in the number of unemployed has continued for several years, she said.

"So I would expect the pace of improvement to slack a bit just because we are at such a low unemployment number," Deck said.

Arkansas' growth in nonfarm jobs is slowing, Deck said.

For the first five months of the year, the number of jobs in the state grew by about 2 percent a month, when compared with the same month last year, Deck said.

"But in the last three months, it's grown 1.4 percent in August, 1 percent [in September] and 1 percent [in October]," Deck said. "The growth rate is slowing. It still looks good. Obviously 4 percent unemployment is fantastic. But the pace at which we're gaining jobs has been slower in the second half of the year."

Six sectors had job gains from October last year, four were down and one was unchanged.

There were 400 fewer jobs in construction in October compared with October last year, Deck said. Because of the relatively good weather in October, it would be expected that construction still would be adding jobs, Deck said.

The trade, transportation and utilities sector, the largest sector in the state with more than 250,000 jobs, had 100 fewer jobs in October than in the same month last year.

"If construction and trade, transportation and utilities were growing at even a modest rate, the pace would be better," Deck said.

Arkansas was one of 15 states that did not record job gains in construction from October last year to last month, according to the Associated General Contractors of America.

"Firms that perform public-sector work are having a hard time finding enough work to keep their teams together," Ken Simonson, chief economist for the association, said in a statement.

Simonson noted that public-sector spending on construction is down 2.2 percent for the first nine months of this year.

The educational and health services sector added 7,500 jobs in the past 12 months, with 7,200 jobs coming in health care and social assistance. The professional and business services sector grew by 4,600 jobs.

The biggest loss in jobs was in manufacturing, which had 1,500 fewer jobs than in October last year. Nondurable goods manufacturing actually had a gain of 1,800 jobs while durable goods manufacturing lost 3,300 jobs.

Government jobs were unchanged from October last year.

New Hampshire and South Dakota had the lowest unemployment rates in the country at 2.8 percent each, followed by North Dakota at 3 percent, and Hawaii and Utah at 3.2 percent each.

Alaska had the highest unemployment rate at 6.8 percent, followed by New Mexico at 6.7 percent, Louisiana at 6.3 percent, West Virginia at 6 percent and Mississippi at 5.9 percent.

Business on 11/19/2016

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