State employment and unemployment, November 2011

From November 2010 to November 2011, 25 states experienced statistically significant changes in employment, all of which were increases. The largest increase occurred in California (+233,100), followed by Texas (+226,000) and Florida (+98,100).

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Among those states with statistically significant employment changes from November 2010 to November 2011, the largest over-the-year percentage increase occurred in North Dakota (+4.5 percent), followed by Wyoming (+3.0 percent) and Oklahoma (+2.8 percent).

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In November, Nevada continued to record the highest unemployment rate among the states, 13.0 percent. California posted the next highest rate, 11.3 percent. North Dakota again registered the lowest jobless rate, 3.4 percent, followed by Nebraska, 4.1 percent, and South Dakota, 4.3 percent.

In total, 25 states reported jobless rates significantly lower than the U.S. figure of 8.6 percent, 10 states and the District of Columbia had measurably higher rates, and 15 states had rates that were not appreciably different from that of the nation.

These data are from the Current Employment Statistics (State and Metro Area) and Local Area Unemployment Statistics programs. Data for the most recent month are preliminary and subject to revision. To learn more, see "Regional and State Employment and Unemployment — November 2011" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL-11-1777.