November 2014 Employment: Rhode Island Digging Its Separate Hole

The United States of America crossed a milestone, with November employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS): The average state has now gained back all of the employment lost since its peak.  (Of course, it took a long, long time for that to happen, and a real recovery would reach the employment level that the country would have in the absence of a recession, but still…)

Rhode Island, on the other hand, remains at the bottom of the recovery and has actually been losing employment, lately.

The Ocean State’s unemployment rate continued to drift downward, to 7.1% now, which should be good news, but the reason is a statistical one, and negative.  The 2,408 Rhode Islanders who left the labor force in November far outnumbered the 507 who lost their employment, so the unemployment rate went down.  The following chart shows the trend:

RI-laborforceandemp-0107-1114

These results are especially concerning when they’re placed in comparison with our neighboring states.  Across both of its borders that don’t lead to water, Rhode Island’s neighbors are in the midst of strong improvements.  In fact, the milestone, in the next chart, is that both Massachusetts and Connecticut now have a larger percentage of their January 2007 labor forces employed than Rhode Island has in its labor force.

In other words, Connecticut and Massachusetts are now on track to have more people working than they had working or looking for work in January 2007.  By contrast, Rhode Island is on track to to have fewer people working or looking for work than it had working in January 2007.

RI-MA-CT-labor&unemployment-perc-jan07-nov14

This improvement of our neighbors’ is visible in the next chart, too, with Connecticut having crossed the 100% line for the first time since the recession.  Meanwhile, Rhode Island is once again in competition for last place, as Michigan sees actually employment gains.  Fortunately, for RI, Alabama has joined the race for last.

US-employmentpercofpeak-1114

The final chart gives context to the positive spin on which insiders in Rhode Island government have been focusing — that the gain in RI-based jobs “negates October loss.”  That’s true, but it only keeps the state on the same trend it’s been following: With RI-based jobs inching up (probably among established companies), while the more dynamic statistic that captures the self-employed is not only more erratic, but is drifting downward and is likely to be adjusted down even more when the BLS revises its numbers for 2014 next month.

RI-employment&jobs-0107-1114

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