Arkansas jobless rate inches higher in December

Arkansas’ jobless rate in December rose slightly to 3.4% from 3.3% in November. The rate was unchanged from December 2022. The estimated number of Arkansans without jobs rose by 446 between December 2022 and December 2023.

The number of employed in Arkansas during December was an estimated 1,343,944, up 18,263 jobs, or 1.74%, compared with December 2022, and below the 1,347,582 in November, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report posted Tuesday (Jan. 23). The December numbers are preliminary and subject to revision.

Dr. Michael Pakko, chief economist and state economic forecaster at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s Institute for Economic Advancement, noted that the state ended the year with the same jobless rate that it began the year.

“The state employment report for December continued to show that the labor market was weakening toward the end of the year, with the unemployment rate increasing for the fifth consecutive month. From a longer-term perspective, however, the weakness toward the end of the year was merely a partial offset to the strength we saw in the first half of 2023,” Pakko noted in his assessment of the December report.

Arkansas’ labor force, the number of people eligible to work, in December was 1,391,742, up 1.4% from 1,373,033 in December 2022 but below 1,392,889 in November.

Arkansans without jobs in December totaled 47,798, up 5.5% compared with the 45,307 in November and up 0.94% compared with the 47,352 in December 2022.

NATIONAL NUMBERS
Maryland and North Dakota had the lowest jobless rates in December at 1.9% each. The next lowest rate was in South Dakota at 2%. Nevada had the highest unemployment rate at 5.4%. In total, 16 states had unemployment rates lower than the U.S. figure of 3.7%, 5 states and the District of Columbia had higher rates, and 29 states had rates that were not appreciably different from that of the nation.

In December, 15 states had over-the-month unemployment rate increases, the largest of which were in Massachusetts and Rhode Island (+0.3 percentage points each). Minnesota had the only rate decrease (-0.2 percentage points). Thirty-four states and the District of Columbia had jobless rates that were not notably different from those of a month earlier, though some had changes that were at least as large numerically as the significant changes.