The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released state employment and unemployment data on March 29 for the month of February. The news was rather good.
The report showed that Sixth District states added a net 41,600 payrolls in February, which is a stronger showing that January’s upwardly revised increase of 28,200. All states in the region added payrolls in February, with Tennessee (up 11,400) and Louisiana (up 9,100) leading the way.
Meanwhile, the aggregated unemployment rate for the region remained unchanged at 7.8 percent, with individual states’ results a mixed bag (see table below). The unemployment rate decreased in Florida (down 0.2 percentage point) and Georgia (down 0.1 percentage point), the two states that together make up almost 60 percent of the Sixth District’s labor market. The unemployment rate increased in the other states in the region.
By Neil Desai, a senior economic analyst in the Atlanta Fed’s research department