Missouri’s Unemployment Rate Is Now at 4.9%, Down 2.1% From August

The Missouri Jobs report is out for the month of September and job growth is gaining momentum.

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is now at 4.9%, down 2.1% from August, which is significantly lower than the national average of 7.9%.

Officials say the state added 13,000 new jobs and the estimated number of unemployed Missourians is now over 146,000, down more than 68,000 compared to August.

While new jobs continue to be added, the 4.9% is still 1.9% higher than 2019’s numbers for this time period.

The Missouri labor market’s recovery resumed in September 2020. Employment, seasonally adjusted, increased by 13,000 jobs over the month, and over-the year job losses from COVID-19 shutdowns dropped below 125,000. Missouri’s smoothed seasonally adjusted unemployment rate went down by 2.1 percentage points in September 2020, decreasing to 4.9 percent from an August 2020 rate of 7.0 percent.

Missouri’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate has now been either below or equal to the national rate for 67 consecutive months. The national unemployment rate was 7.9 percent in September 2020.

The estimated number of unemployed Missourians was 146,051 in September 2020, down by 68,345 from August’s 214,396. The over-the-month drop is due in part to the unemployed workers exhausting their Unemployment Insurance benefits and leaving the labor market. The change contributed to the 2.3 percent decline in Missouri’s total civilian labor force over the month.

Due to lingering layoffs from COVID-19 shutdowns, the September 2020 rate was still nearly 50 percent higher than the September 2019 rate. The rate had reached a record low of 3.0 percent starting in August 2018, before edging up a tenth of a point in November 2018 and again in December 2018. The rate had remained at 3.2 percent through April 2019 before decreasing by a tenth of a point in May 2019. It then began a slow increase, reaching 3.4 percent in October 2019, where it remained for the remainder of 2019. The rate was steady at 3.5 percent in January and February 2020 before the COVID-19 spike began in March 2020. The rate peaked at 10.2 percent in April 2020 before decreasing slightly in May 2020, then moving strongly lower in June and July of 2020 as COVID-19 restrictions were eased. The rate was unchanged in August 2020 , and unemployment again decreased sharply in September 2020.

The state’s not-seasonally-adjusted rate was 4.3 percent in September 2020, down by 2.8 percentage points from the August 2020 not-seasonally-adjusted rate of 7.1 percent. The corresponding not-seasonally-adjusted national rate for September 2020 was 7.7 percent.

A year ago, the state’s seasonally adjusted rate was 3.3 percent, and the not-adjusted rate was 2.7 percent.

Missouri’s seasonally adjusted nonfarm payroll employment was 2,784,500 in September 2020, up by 13,000 from the revised August figure. In addition, the August 2020 total was revised upward by 2,000 from the preliminary estimate, producing a revised increase of 7,700 jobs from July 2020 to August 2020 and a revised decrease of 135,600 jobs from August 2019 to August 2020.

Private-sector employment gains occurred in seven major industry groups over the month, with the largest increases in government (+4,600 jobs), trade, transportation & utilities (+2,500 jobs), construction (+2,100 jobs) and leisure & hospitality (+1,500 jobs).  The only major groups not sharing in the gains were professional & business services (-1,000 jobs) and educational & health services, which had a small loss of 300 jobs over the month.

Total payroll employment decreased by 121,900 jobs from September 2019 to September 2020. As in August, over-the-year job losses were widespread among the major sectors of the labor market, with only construction, “other services” and government spared. Goods-producing industries lost 4,100 jobs over the year, and service-providing industries lost 117,800 jobs. Manufacturing employment was down by 8,700 (-3.1 percent), while construction, aided by less severe COVID-19 restrictions for outdoor work, showed an increase of 4,900 jobs (+3.9 percent). Among service-providing industries, leisure & hospitality lost 50,900 jobs over the year, a decrease of 16.5 percent. Educational & health services lost 23,000 jobs (-4.7 percent), while employment in trade, transportation & utilities was down by 20,700 (-3.8 percent). Professional & business services lost 17,600 jobs (-4.6 percent) and the information sector lost 4,800 jobs (-10.1 percent). Government employment was up by 3,100 jobs (+0.7 percent) over the year.

See the full Jobs Report here.

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