Despite rising claims for jobless benefits, the state added 45,200 jobs last month and saw a significant drop in unemployment, according to the Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity.
The unemployment rate fell to 8.9% from a troubling 13.4% in April when much of the state's commerce was shut down and hundreds of thousands of people sought unemployment benefits. Economists say that data might be unreliable, though.
Arizona usually sees a decline in jobs from April to May coinciding with the end of the college school year and a shift from the busy tourism season to the slower summer season.
The losses usually are in education and food and drinking establishments, but this year was significantly different as the state emerged from the governor's stay-at-home order and businesses reopened in May.
The state still has about 163,000 fewer jobs than it did a year ago, but the turnaround is welcome nonetheless.
"This 45,000 new jobs added, it looks pretty good," said Lee McPheters, an economics professor at Arizona State University and director of the JPMorgan Chase Economic Outlook Center. "Compared to a year ago we are still way down. I think there is a strong case to be made, maybe not for a V-shaped (rapid) recovery, but slow, steady growth through end of the year and better growth next year."
McPheters said the monthly data needs an asterisk, though, because of problems collecting data. The household survey used to gather unemployment figures by the Department of Labor has revealed that millions of people were incorrectly categorized as working when in fact they had been furloughed.
The data on the number of people in the workforce is gathered in a separate survey of employers, and it too might have reliability issues if people who were temporarily furloughed were included by employers as being on the payroll, McPheters said.
BACK TO WORK: All Arizona businesses must now comply with reopening guidelines
So while job growth was expected, the big drop in the unemployment rate was more of a surprise.
"The survey on the national level is a little shaky, but there's certainly no surprise here that we are seeing a pickup in the food service and so forth as the main driver of this growth," he said. "This is the kind of thing we will look back on a year from now and try to figure out what the downturn looked like."
McPheters said economists tracking the data will not be surprised if the June data reported in July shows an uptick in unemployment.
"As to whether it holds up as we go into this next maybe one or two months is of concern," he said. "There will be a sense of higher risk and it may well be the economy sputters a little bit. What I would expect to see, hope to see, is we continue adding jobs through the end of the year."
Eight job sectors added employment in May in Arizona and three had declines.
The largest growth was in leisure and hospitality, which added 37,200 jobs compared with April's figures, according to the report.
Other sector changes from April to May include:
- Trade, transportation and utilities added 9,000 jobs.
- "Other" services added 8,400 jobs.
- Education and health added 5,400 jobs.
- Construction added 3,500.
- Information, natural resources/mining and financial activities combined added about 400 jobs.
- Manufacturing lost 1,300 jobs.
- Professional and business services declined by 3,700 jobs.
- Government jobs declined by 13,700 month over month.
Every sector except construction and financial services remains lower than they were a year ago.
The largest year-over-year job losses are in leisure and hospitality. Even with the large monthly gains, leisure and hospitality remains 87,000 jobs below where it was a year ago in Arizona.
Reach reporter Ryan Randazzo at ryan.randazzo@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4331. Follow him on Twitter @UtilityReporter.
Subscribe to azcentral.com today.
"may" - Google News
June 19, 2020 at 07:24AM
https://ift.tt/2YfHSYw
Arizona unemployment rate dropped sharply in May, though economists advise caution on figures - AZCentral
"may" - Google News
https://ift.tt/3foH8qu
https://ift.tt/2zNW3tO
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Arizona unemployment rate dropped sharply in May, though economists advise caution on figures - AZCentral"
Post a Comment