October Employment Report

By Nate Griffin – November 19th, 2021

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its Employment Situation report this morning. The US unemployment rate continued to decline, falling from 4.8 percent to 4.6 percent. And while this marks a significant decline from it's peak of 14.8 percent, it is still elevated from a pre-pandemic low of 3.5 percent.

Most States continued to see lower or stable unemployment numbers. Only three states; Massachusetts, Maine and Rhode Island, increased slightly from the previous month.

Hawaii and Nevada's unemployment rates have fallen sharply since October of 2020. Hawaii had the nations highest rate at14 percent. Now that rate has halved to 7 percent, though still higher than the national average. Nevada's rate fell by 4.7 points to 7.7 percent. Both states had been hit hard by the decline in tourism and travel by restrictions set in place by the pandemic.

There are still over seven million individuals looking for work. About half-a-million of these are new workers. A large portion, about 19 percent, had left the workforce but now have returned and are looking for work.

Rising wages and falling COVID cases have likely helped to bring people back into the workforce.