In each Economic Update, the Research staff analyzes recently released economic indicators and addresses what these indicators mean for REALTORS® and their clients. Today’s update discusses  state level employment.

  • Job growth has been the fastest in Utah, Arizona, and Georgia in the past 12 months to July, all expanding at double the national growth rate.  Utah has already recovered all the job losses that occurred during the recession and is charting new highs.  Arizona and Georgia still have further to go before surpassing their peaks.
  • Happy to see the very hard hit state of Michigan generating jobs, though it will not reach its prior peak anytime soon.
  • The states in the upper Great Plains had very low unemployment rates.  North Dakota in particular had the lowest unemployment rate in the country with only 3 percent of adults unable to find jobs.  Many years of steady job growth are contributing to such a low jobless rate.
  • The unemployment rate was the highest in Nevada and Illinois with more than 9 percent without jobs.  Georgia still has a high unemployment rate of 8.8 percent, but at least the Peach State is quickly adding jobs which will lower the unemployment rate in the upcoming months.  Nevada is adding some jobs.  Illinois, unfortunately, was the only state with a high unemployment rate and very low job creation.  Therefore, the high unemployment rate will stick around a while longer in Illinois.
  • The Chicago area, comprising more than two-third of Illinois jobs, was one of the fastest growing cities at the turn of the last century.  That is, around the year 1900, Chicago was the railroad center of the country and anyone with good business ideas happily moved to the city.  The Great Migration from the Deep South was also occurring as jobs with good wages were plentiful.  Many of the great buildings in Chicago are a testament to those fast growing times.  Today, Chicago is no longer the Second City despite having a great comedy theater by that name (LA took that spot).  Chicago could easily drop to fourth, behind Dallas-Ft. Worth by the next decade if job growth does not meaningfully pick up.