Arkansas' unemployment rate fell to 6 percent in October from 6.2 percent in September, an improvement that was accompanied by monthly gains in the labor force and the number of employed workers, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday.
The national unemployment rate was 5.8 percent in October.
It was the second straight month that the labor force and the number of employed in the state grew after six consecutive months of declines in those categories.
During that stretch this year, economists were concerned that the reason the unemployment rate was falling was because people unable to find work were possibly moving out of state.
"It had been since March that we'd seen a very dramatic decline in employment and hence labor market participation," said Michael Pakko, chief economist at the Institute for Economic Advancement at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
The labor force increased by 7,400 in October to 1,307,400. In September, it had increased by 3,600. The six months prior to that, the number of Arkansans in the labor force had dropped by 34,400. The labor force includes those working and looking for work in the state, but those who stop searching aren't counted.
"This October report just reinforced the turnaround we saw in September," Pakko said.
There were 9,400 more Arkansans employed in October compared with September and 2,000 fewer unemployed.
But looking from a longer perspective, Arkansas still is not doing well, said Kathy Deck, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
There were 79,000 unemployed Arkansans in October, 21,600 fewer than in October 2013. But there were only 3,300 more employed workers over the past year.
What happened to the other 18,300?
"Some of them are getting hired, but most of them are not showing up in the labor force anymore," Deck said. "But it's amazing that they are not reporting themselves as being unemployed either."
The possibility that some of those people moved out of state "is something we shouldn't dismiss off hand," Deck said.
"But we won't know what happened to the population for a long time," Deck said. "I think when you look at numbers that are this stark, that has to be a possibility."
Six employment sectors had job gains in October compared with October last year, four showed declines and one was unchanged.
There were 4,800 more jobs in manufacturing last month compared with October 2013, for a total of 156,900. It was the eighth straight month manufacturing reported a year-to-year gain in jobs.
That is the first significant growth in manufacturing in years.
"The increase we saw in manufacturing in October was a positive sign," Pakko said. "Manufacturing is way down [over several years], but that is part of a long-term trend."
Arkansas has lost more than 46,000 manufacturing jobs since October 2004 and has lost 90,400 manufacturing jobs since they peaked at 247,300 in 1995, Deck said.
The educational and health services sector, which includes health care and social assistance, rose by 4,000 jobs in the past 12 months.
The professional and business services sector added 3,800 jobs in the past year.
Professional and business services continues to be Arkansas' strongest jobs sector since the economic expansion started in June 2009, said Greg Kaza, executive director of the Little Rock-based Arkansas Policy Foundation.
Jobs in the professional and business services sector have increased 18.9 percent since June 2009. That represents an addition of 21,100 jobs from 111,800 positions in June 2009 to 132,900 last month.
"The sector has expanded close to the national average," Kaza said.
Arkansas' professional and business services sector includes professional, scientific and technical services; management of companies and enterprises; and administration and support services, Kaza said.
The biggest drop in Arkansas jobs in the past 12 months was in the trade, transportation and utilities sector, which lost 2,000 jobs.
Near the first of every year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics revises its numbers for jobs and employment for the previous few years.
Pakko is expecting that the 2015 revision will reduce the estimate of jobs in Arkansas.
Given the statistics now available, Pakko is projecting that Arkansas will likely have 9,400 fewer jobs than the number the federal government is now estimating for the state.
Georgia had the country's highest unemployment rate in October at 7.7 percent, followed by Mississippi at 7.6 percent, Rhode Island at 7.4 percent, California at 7.3 percent and Michigan, Nevada and Tennessee at 7.1 percent each.
North Dakota had the lowest unemployment rate at 2.8 percent, followed by South Dakota at 3.3 percent, Nebraska at 3.4 percent, Utah at 3.6 percent and Minnesota at 3.9 percent.
Business on 11/22/2014