As 2024 began with yet another surprisingly strong jobs report for the U.S. (353,000 jobs added in January and the unemployment rate steady at 3.7%), and with a full year’s worth of 2023 state-level employment data now available, it’s worth briefly revisiting some of the trends discussed in our early December post on New Jersey’s employment situation.
New Jersey’s unemployment rate continued to edge up slightly at year’s end, growing to 4.8% in December. This ranked third in the country, tied with Illinois but lower than Nevada (5.4%) and California (5.1%). Over the course of the full year, New Jersey’s rate rose by 1.5 percentage points, by far the fastest increase nationwide. Most of this increase came in the second half of the year. New Jersey’s rate grew by 1.1 percentage points from June to December, surpassing the rates of regional neighbors such as Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania.
Read more about what Will Irving found in this study.