PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island recorded the fourth-largest year-over-year decrease in its unemployment rate among the 50 states in March, dropping 1.1 percentage points to 4.3 percent, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday.
Rhode Island’s rate was lower than the national unemployment rate, which fell 0.5 percentage points over the year, to 4.5 percent last month. Rates are seasonally adjusted.
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The BLS reported that 18 states had unemployment rate decreases from a year earlier, and 32 states and the District of Columbia had little or no change.
Of the 18 states that recorded year-over-year unemployment rate decreases, West Virginia had the largest decrease at 1.3 percentage points, to 4.9 percent. Besides Rhode Island and West Virginia, only Illinois, Nevada and Oregon also had a percentage point decrease that was more than 1 percentage point.
The BLS reported that Rhode Island’s labor force increased to 554,048, which is 0.32 percent higher than a year earlier. Also, the amount of unemployed Rhode Islanders fell to 23,949 in March from 29,835 a year ago, a 19.7 percent drop.
The BLS also reported that Colorado’s 2.6 percent unemployment rate was the lowest in the country in March, closely followed by Hawaii at 2.7 percent, and New Hampshire, North Dakota and South Dakota, at 2.8 percent each. New Mexico had the highest unemployment rate in March at 6.7 percent.
Meanwhile, California has added 346,400 jobs since March 2016, which is approximately 97,000 more jobs than any other state year over year. California was among 27 states, including Rhode Island, that had over the year increases in nonfarm payroll employment. Rhode Island’s nonfarm payroll employment grew to 494,600 in March from 490,600 a year ago. Utah had the largest percentage gain over the year in nonfarm payroll employment at 3.2 percent.
Only two states lost jobs – Alaska, 6,900 jobs and a 2.1 percent decrease, and Wyoming, 6,100 jobs and a 2.1 percent drop. Twenty-one states essentially had no change in nonfarm payroll employment.
Chris Bergenheim is a PBN staff writer.
