0:00 hello and welcome to people making money I'm your host Kevin bemel and we are here every Wednesday at 10: a.m. Pacific time to talk about matters such as job hunting advancing our professional and business lives wealth building and a topic like today which is how the economy um may be impacting all of those aspects of our lives so this is a monthly feature um usually toward the middle to end of the month because um
0:36 the statistics for the prior month take a little while for the various uh government agencies to to generate and so um we're going to jump right in because there's always a lot of information to parse through to really get a sense about what's going on not just with the overall economy which frankly doesn't mean a whole lot to us as individuals because while we all live in the United States um what's happening collectively in the United
1:12 States um while it may be directing um a local more local Trend isn't necessarily determinative of it so it's it's the the more local data which which I work to bring to you as well that is more likely to to be relevant so we we we kind of start out here and then move in on on all of these various uh topics so let's let's Jump Right In and we're going to start out with looking at inflation um which is typically measured by the CPI
1:49 the Consumer Price Index and as I've mentioned in previous shows so there are a number of different consumer price indic um the one that is most typically quoted is the all Urban consumers CPI so if you're living in a rural area data from where you live is not reflected um and and what that means is your experience could and probably is
2:25 very different from from that of you know someone like me who lives in urban Los Angeles okay so if you see right here it's the in May the Consumer Price Index for all Urban consumers was unchanged seasonally adjusted and Rose 3.3% over the last 12 months not seasonally adjusted um uh the index for all items less food and energy increased 0.2% in May and 3.4% over the year now why do they give us the number less food
3:00 and energy well that's because food and energy prices tend to be more volatile than others and so there is a greater consistency in the all items less food and energy um and and so that that's why they quote that so inflation basically is is still in the low to mid3 3.3 3.4% um and and if you follow this news you probably know that the uh Federal Reserve uh Federal Reserve board's
3:37 Target inflation rate is 2% um so uh it may seem strange that the the this you know very powerful influencer on the economy wants to see some inflation um but indeed a little bit of inflation is is actually um a sign of a healthy economy um and that's why that that Benchmark is set at 2% so we're roughly 75% above that um level and that's why
4:13 if you followed the news you saw that at their last meeting of the Open Market Committee um where they set um interest rates basically the federal funds rate they just they left it unchanged and they went from earlier this year when they were contemplating Maybe maybe two or three reductions of of the federal funds rate to perhaps there's going to be one this year okay because inflation is staying um stubbornly higher um than than the FED wants to see it um
4:49 and of course it's it's down considerably from the nine plus um inflation rate back in uh you know 2021 2022 um but but still remains high on a national level okay so now let's go to uh oops let's see let's let's go to now the state byst state level which is right here okay uh oops wait a minute nope I jumped
5:25 over one let's see if I go here okay here we go so um this is a it's not state byst state but it's it's regional so um if you um look at um the various areas so um there the South Northeast West uh West South Central Etc there's what 12 13 regions here um and you see that um New England it appears overall well let's see if we
6:00 can get New England okay so New England right now is at 3.8% um whereas the national a the national rate is 3.3 so New England is higher than the national rate the West is right at the national rate 3.3% the south is slightly lower 3.2 West South Central um which would be I would think you know kind of Texas around that area
6:36 3.1% okay and the mountain region this would be you know Colorado Wyoming um that area uh 2.5% so considerably lower than um than the national average okay and that that's the Bott let's see let's let's get the rest of these in here okay so midatlantic 4% considerably above now the Mid-Atlantic is kind of um Pennsylvania and and and the states
7:11 around that area that's the Mid-Atlantic so East South Central let's here we go east south central is also very high at 3.9% East South Central um I I think would be um probably uh I'm I'm thinking I'm not I'm not sure where the east south central is and I haven't been able to find a map of these regions um and let's see there was another one I wanted let's see where is the okay so Midwest let's look at the
7:47 Midwest so here we go okay so the Midwest is at 2.7% so that's below the national average okay so that gives you an idea if you're living in in the Mid-Atlantic the east south central um you know those areas um you can see that um you're experiencing inflation um higher than and New England
8:24 so you're experiencing inflation at a higher rate than nationally 4% or slightly below that if you're in the west you're experiencing inflation basically in line with um the rest of the you know with the overall country and if you're in the midwest Mountain Area you're experiencing inflation considerably lower than the um the uh country overall okay so these kind of regional differences um you know give you a a a
9:01 you know a different picture of what your experience may be okay now let's look at some um urban areas okay so you can see here um for example Atlanta Sandy uh Springs Roswell um Georgia the they're experiencing okay they they haven't broken this down for May yet but as of April they were experiencing uh 3.1% inflation now that's as compared to let's look at Los Angeles where I
9:37 live where is La okay Los Angeles 3.9% so while the West overall is at 3.3% Los Angeles is at 3.9% much higher so let's look at another Western area Riverside San Bernardino Ontario and that's at 4% as well so at least the Southern California area we're experiencing higher inflation than the nation as a whole all right now
10:12 let's look at a uh a New England let's see if we let me find a New England City here um where here Boston there we go okay so Boston let's see where is Boston right there nope Boston doesn't want to show up Boston's being uh let's let's get rid of Riverside let's get rid of Los Angeles and okay there's Boston here we go okay so Boston is at 4% which is also higher
10:50 than the national average okay so now let's look at let's take Boston out let's look at a Midwest City um um how about well there are oh here we go St Louis okay so St Louis also at 4% so we're seeing I think we're seeing a trend here and that is if you live in an urban area um you are um more likely to be experiencing High inflation look at
11:25 Hawaii is at Urban Hawaii is at 5.2% % let's look at Chicago okay Chicago is is one of the lowest at 3.1% okay now let's look at the mountain states okay Denver Aurora Lakewood 2.6% that's the only well um Chicago and Denver the only two cities below the national average that we've looked at so far let's let's we'll take out Chicago let's look at Houston okay uh here we go Houston 2.9 % now let's look at Miami
12:01 okay Miami oops here we go Miami 4 and a half% okay so um you can see that generally speaking the inflation rate in a city is higher than it is um at least in these large metropolitan areas is higher than it is in um other parts of the country okay so San Diego carlb 3.2% uh
12:37 Phoenix oops let's get rid of Miami let's get rid of Houston okay where here we go Phoenix Scottdale okay only 2.2% in Phoenix Mesa Scottdale that's the that's the think the lowest city that we found so I have a friend who's living in Phoenix you know lucky for him right so but in General living in an urban area right now at least means higher inflation or you're experiencing higher inflation than you would if you're living in a um a more suburban area okay
13:15 and yeah that's that's all I want to cover for inflation all right so now let's go to uh okay now we're going to go to um earnings okay okay so in May okay um real average earnings seasonally adjusted went up five cents an hour okay or you know gosh be let's see one 1% would be around 11 cents so it went basically
13:52 a half of a percent okay so you know on a national basis um and wait oh here it goes okay here shows the percentages right here so on a national basis um wages um average um uh wages went up 0. five% for point4 to 0.5% depending on how they're being calculated whereas um the the consumer prices well they stayed flat from the previous month
14:27 okay um but uh one of the things you you want to keep keep in mind is prices still increased annually by 3.3% okay so let's look at the year-over-year numbers okay here we go so year-over-year right real average earnings year-over-year went up 0.8% whereas prices um went up 3.3% okay this is um over over the year um and this is kind of this is kind of
15:04 weird average hourly earnings okay well so you know we really want to be looking at real average hourly and weekly earnings so if you feeling pinched um this is why because in whereas earlier wages were adjusting faster than inflation now um it seems like that that has slowed down down again now again this is across the country so let's let's look here now we looked at this last month um and they
15:40 you'll see it's not going to be updated until June of 2024 um but you you can see looking at this map um the states that are um having bigger um annual uh changes in personal income okay so the darker the color the more rapidly personal income is increasing so for this dark darkest orange color here which is here in in the mountain states Texas Florida uh Mississippi Missouri and South
16:16 Carolina um uh personal income is increasing at a rate of 4.9 to 6.7% um I'm pretty sure that's on an let's yeah um that's that's on a quarterly basis so that was um that was actually for the fourth quarter of last year okay whereas um the states with this sort of you know very light tan color including New York Louisiana Arkansas the Midwest
16:52 here um they increased from8 to 3.3% okay so those were the lowest and you you can see them here so um North Dakota had the lowest rate at 8% and Nevada had the highest rate at 6.7% so again uh know here in California 3.4% so in in California we're kind of just you know holding even with inflation at least as of the last the LA fourth quarter of
17:28 last year here whereas here in the Midwest okay all of these states and New York um they are basically well New York is at 3 no New York is 3 okay yeah so with the exception of Minnesota which is at 3.3% all of these states in these Light tan color are losing ground with respect to inflation so the Midwest the middle of the country you know those of you living there if you're feeling pinched this is most likely why now it'll be interesting to see what happened in the
18:04 first quarter of um 2024 and we'll look at that next month okay um so again what I said at the at the beginning is the national numbers don't mean so much um you know as compared to what's happening locally okay so um in the Midwest um even where inflation is lower um the the gains in personal income are even lower than that Iowa 0.8% um which is actually that the
18:41 lowest with um North Dakota um Arkansas point just 1% um South Dakota 2.5% so um it's no surprise that people even people in the midwest where inflation is lower are still feeling pinched because wage growth is not keeping up or personal income in this case is not keeping up with increase in prices right so that that's why you're seeing in the polls people are still um upset about
19:17 inflation and prices Etc and they have um they don't have a positive view of the economy now look here in Hawaii by the way if you're in Hawaii personal income grew by 2.5% in the last quarter of in the fourth quarter of last year but if you recall at least as of May price increases or or inflation in Hawaii was over 5% so it appears that inflation is running at twice wage growth which means people are
19:53 in Hawaii probably are feeling like they're really falling behind okay okay even here in um the Mid-Atlantic States uh New Jersey Pennsylvania Delaware Etc so um while they're getting personal income growth in the four very low 4% if you recall inflation in the Mid-Atlantic States was higher than the national average at about 4% so you know people are basically just treading water so you
20:28 know when when you hear in the news about you know why do why do people complaining about the economy well that's why right because we're not living the economy of the entire United States we live it locally and that's really what matters okay so let's move on now to the S to unemployment okay so the civilian unemployment rate the total total unemployment rate as of May is 4% and you see that's up slightly
21:05 from April um and and this this is uh obviously not a great sign um but in terms of um bringing down inflation um typically what we see is a weakening job market um it is necessary um as part of bringing down inflation because when the job market weakens people don't have as much buying power they don't buy as much and so therefore um prices have to moderate um
21:43 in order for um sellers to sell more Goods okay now this is the overall civilian unemployment rate for the entire country now let's let's look at some groups here let's look at men 20 years or older okay at 3.8% okay so they're slightly below the total and women 20 and over look at this 3.4% so they have a lower uninf a lower unemployment rate uh than men do now let's look at teenagers okay teenagers
22:21 12.3% that's up from 11.7% last month so we can see overall unemployment is is increasing okay now let's look at some um other demographics so for for uh for Whits so the unemployment rate is 3.5% that's below the national average of four um for blacks or African Americans the unemployment rate is 6.1% okay which is up from last month it's a half it's a a half a percentage
22:56 point or but that's 10% based on last month B basically and you can see that it's considerably higher than the national rate okay for Asians okay so Asians are at 3.1% and that that that's to be expected generally speaking Asians do um better economically than than any other group in the United States okay and then Hispanics are Latinos at 5% again a jump from 4 and a half a 10% increase in unemployment from last month okay
23:34 so um you know now by the way these are still overall pretty low rates um especially when you compare you know the peak of covid when you know we're talking about you know 19 20% unemployment rates but again how your experiencing unemployment um Isn't So relevant um um uh you know in terms of um nationally um because um um you experience it locally okay so
24:11 let now let's go back I I I expanded the chart so you can see coming from 2021 unemployment was still around 6% and you can see it trended downward it's it's it bottomed out at about looks like about 3.4% okay and lately the trend has been upward okay which is frankly like it or not it's what the FED wants to see um in in in if it's going to moderate interest rates okay and you know again for for uh
24:47 men 20 years and older okay so they hit a a low of 3.1% back about a year and a half ago um and now they're back up to 3.3% so it's it's gone up by 50% since then okay but still still pretty low okay women um you know interestingly enough women are bucking the trend everybody else the trend was higher unemployment um from last month women are seeing lower unemployment from last month so um that's that's a that's a
25:24 good trend for for women um Teenage teers okay okay so teenagers also saw their unemployment rate go down from from last month so that's you know good good for them okay and just again looking at demographics so whites have been pretty consistent here um blacks have been a little bit more up and down but overall higher okay and let's take those out and then let's look at Asians so Asians have been more up
26:00 and down but but consistently um below the national average and last uh but not least certainly is um Hispanics where you see um they've been a little bit more up and down as well um but overall a little bit higher than the national average okay so now let's look at local unemployment okay so going state by state you can see the lowest and this is still for April they haven't done the May figure so we'll see the May figures next month you can see the lowest is in
26:36 North and South Dakota at 2% okay so roughly half the national average okay and the highest is California again I think this is several several months in a row at 5.3% which is um about what um about 30% higher um than the national average so you can see California Nevada Washington Alaska Oregon so in general
27:15 the West is experiencing um higher um higher unemployment um than other parts of the country and you can see North and South Dakota Nebraska Minnesota Iowa Kansas um so those the Midwest is experiencing um lower unemployment so too are um you know um States in in in the Southeast Al you see Alabama here um Mississippi okay so some of those States um
27:51 Tennessee um Georgia um those states are below the national you know significantly below the average okay and so are some of the mountain states so Utah um ver you know 2.8% um and uh let's see let's Okay where here's Colorado so Colorado and New Mexico that these states when we start getting into um Colorado U New Mexico Delaware Michigan Ohio Texas these states are around the national
28:26 average same with uh Rhode Island and but then by the time we get to New York now we're already um you know above the national average okay now not all the southern states are doing well you can see Louisiana has a higher um higher than the national rate same with Kentucky um and in in the South it looks like Kentucky has the highest unemployment rate of all of the states so what does this mean let's look at this uh okay so well before we get to that now let's let's let's compare this to the civilian labor force
29:03 participation rate so um when we talk about the unemployment rate we're talking about the percentage of people who don't have a job but who are actively looking for a job now that's an important distinction because if a lot of people stop looking for jobs that can drive down the unemployment rate even though there's still a lot of people out of work okay so the the unemployment rate has to be looked at in combination with
29:41 the labor force participation rate so um one of the reasons that infl that unemployment can go up for example is that the labor force participation rate goes up so more people are coming into to the workforce and so there's more people looking for jobs at least in the short term and that drives up inflation but um what we're seeing at least as of this month is the labor force participation rate overall dropped to
30:19 62.5% from 62.7% so for a moment going back to um un I'm just going to take the go go back to the total unemployment okay oops take that out okay so notice that unemployment Rose so one of the reasons why that might not be a bad thing is if the um labor force participation rate had risen as well but it did not it dropped so we're seeing unemployment go up participation rate go down and that
30:56 means that um the even as the number of people looking for jobs actively looking for jobs declined still more people were having trouble finding a job again nationally all right so um that that shows a Slowdown at least a slight slowdown in the labor market okay now you know As the adage goes and I I I I've mentioned this before right um you know uh a a a recession is you know tough times but
31:33 I'm still working a depression is I don't have a job right I it's you know obviously it's somewhat of a joke but for people who have a job and and and feel secure in their employment right if that's you so then the fact that unemployment rate is going up and the labor participation rate is going down um doesn't have you know so much of an impact all right but for people who are looking for a job um new college graduates teenagers over the summer so you know this is not great news the fact that this trend if it continues could
32:11 encourage the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates is is cold comfort right if you're searching for a job okay so now let's look at some of the individual demographics so the labor force participation rate among men uh 20 years and older um is at 69.9% down down from 70.1% last year so um not last year sorry last month so the labor force participation rate for men declined okay for women okay the labor
32:48 force participation rate this month 58.8% down slightly from 58.9% so it declined a little bit as well and then third let's look at teenagers okay so teenagers the labor force participation rate this uh well for for May 38.1% and that's also down slightly from 38.2% okay so we're seeing little changes but all all decreases in the labor force participation rate on these
33:23 demograph age demographics now on Race demographic Graphics okay so whites saw their labor force participation rate drop to 62.2 Oh Yeah 62.2% from 62.3% so a slight drop for blacks and African-Americans okay they saw their labor force participation rate drop from 63.6% to 63.2% okay that is a very significant
33:58 drop okay that's the biggest one we've seen so far that is a let's see 63.6 to 62.9 that's a 7% drop okay or a 1% drop in the labor force participation rate that's that's huge so if for blacks if you're black or African-American and and you're finding it um you're finding it hard to find a job you can see that um a a lot of of of blacks and Africans Amer and African-Americans were just got
34:34 so frustrated last month that they dropped out of the labor force okay um you know not not a good Trend okay for Asians now look Asians flip this on its head so they went from uh their labor force participation rate went up from to 65.3% from I'm trying to get the May number where is May from s oh wait 65.3% yeah in in May and April
35:09 64.7% so um Asians you know again they they're going counter um to other racial groups and then finally Hispanics and Latinos okay and and looks like uh yeah looks like they went up slightly at went from no they went from yeah 67.3 oh they they were flat so no change in the labor force participation rate yeah for for Hispanics and Latinos so um you you can see the racial breakdown and depending on what group you're in
35:46 um uh in general um whites blacks and Asians are are were you know more discouraged last month and so dropped some dropped out um Asians and Latinos Hispanics or Latinos um they either stayed flat or increased their labor force participation rate all right so now this this is kind of U and we looked at this last month um but this just this gives you an idea of um and and we'll look by
36:22 State first it's easier to see okay so go go to state there we go okay so you can see on a state byst state basis the labor force participation rate um the low is 60 and the high is 95% um in theory so Minnesota has the highest um at 81% this is for this is among women and um um and then the the the sort of mountain Mountain States and
36:59 and Upper Midwest they have the next highest group of of Labor Force participation rate by women okay and the lowest are um Alabama and West Virginia okay so states in the Southeast um and tend to be you know more traditional and so that that could easily be why now let's let's look at men okay so you can see the the labor force participation rate for men state by state is first of all overall higher than it is for women okay the highest is
37:37 in Nebraska and again Nebraska Midwest more traditional area and so that that could be why we see that um or the economy can be very good there but really you you can see most of the country um is is in this sort of not darkest blue but but dark blue so overall men have a pretty um High labor force participation rate note that West Virginia is the lowest among men as well so flip back to women for a second so what this is telling us is this isn't
38:13 necessarily due to cultural Trends this is an economic Trend in West Virginia the economy there is is not strong um nor is it particularly strong in Michigan and it's it's again less strong in in the Southeast okay now looking at this in total we can we can look we can see that the weakest States um for labor force participation rate are West Virginia Kentucky and these other states in the South here Alabama Mississippi Arkansas Louisiana and interestingly
38:50 enough New Mexico okay now let's go to a county by county look and let's look at total total county by county okay and you can see again in the midwest especially the Upper Midwest overall the map is a darker blue okay which is a higher labor force participation rate and as you get into the southeast and into the Southwest you can see the the the map colors are lighter
39:25 so overall the labor force participation rate is highest in the mountain states the upper and middle Midwest and in the midatlantic and Northeast okay um and then you know as you get into more of the Sun Belt states the labor force participation rate drops now you can see here's here's um this is Kentucky and West Virginia right here which we saw overall is low this is New Mexico which overall was low Arizon is a little bit better off um Nevada you have um uh you
40:03 know a very dark pocket here in mono oh that's Mono County um here we go you have darker pockets in Nevada I think in the urban areas then of course in the more desert areas less so California you have darker in the coastal areas um and in San Bernardino County um but in the um Central Valley area and the northern part of the state um less so and that's because um agriculture has been challenged in California due to a number
40:38 of issues in the most important one probably being water okay so this gives you an idea of the labor force participation rate um and and and why is the labor force participation rate important well because the lower the labor force participation rate the more people are sitting on the sidelines not looking for jobs which means as the economy improves there's a greater number of people who can jump into the labor force and compete for those new jobs which would tend to indicate that
41:15 the challenge of getting a job is going to be greater in those areas whereas in these darker areas North Slope of Alaska um here in Minnesota here in Iowa here in South Dakota and North Dakota and Montana these areas here Nebraska okay when you have a labor force participation rate in the mid to high 80s okay there isn't that many more people who can jump into the labor market um and and uh you know create greater demand for jobs and so the labor
41:52 the the the labor force there is stronger and there is it potentially um you know more opportunity not just for finding a job but also for pay increases right because when you have such high unemploy high labor force participation 84% 87% 84% 80% 83% 84% you you can see these numbers right so there just aren't a lot of people that employers can look to to come into the market
42:27 um and compete for the jobs okay now let's look county by county at the labor force participation rate for men okay and you can see overall the map is darker but still it's darker in pretty much the same place as the total um picture and for women the map lightens up okay but again it is darker in the same places where it's uh you know where it was darker for the total picture Okay so that's pretty consist consist all right let's see okay so the next thing we're going to look at here
43:03 is employment change by industry okay this is looking at the national level and you can see the greatest job growth um was in the private education and Health Services so there was a net change of 86,000 jobs meaning there were 86,000 more jobs um in May versus um you know previously okay a percentage change of 3% increase total employment is over
43:38 26 million okay now the next largest is government so government added 43,000 jobs or roughly half as many jobs as were added in private education and Health Services okay um um and uh that was a 2% increase at total employment in the government is 23 million now notice that the total employment in private education and Health Services 26 million government 23 million so the
44:15 overall employment is is fairly similar and these two tend to track because much of Health Care Services is driven by government expenditures Medicare Medicaid okay so when you see this growing it's typically growing because of a growth in government expenditures okay and then the third largest um sector growth growth sector um in employment is Leisure and Hospitality which grew 42,000 jobs a a0
44:53 2% increase but notice that um that Leisure and Hospitality total employment is only about 17 million people right so the the size of of this sector is much smaller okay and then next is Business Services about 23 million people work in that and they saw um uh an employment growth of 33,000 okay so those are the four biggest now let's look at the four smallest so in the information sector saw essentially no job growth so they
45:31 have about three million jobs there and and that's what they've got okay um utilities saw a job growth of 1300 okay and they've got about 600,000 people in that sector so again not not a big growth there okay uh wholesale trade net growth of 3,000 jobs out of a total of over six million ion so very very small growth there as well now I'm going to jump to retail trade where there was 12 thou 12 point uh 12,600 jobs growth a
46:09 0.1% change out of almost 16 million jobs so what this is showing us here in wholesale and Retail trade is while there are some job there is some job growth it's not a whole lot and when you couple that with manufacturing 8,000 jobs you know job growth so um manufacturing retail trade those kind of things they are not um powering a lot of employment growth these days um employment growth is coming from um aside from construction which saw 21,000
46:47 jobs uh new jobs in May um out of over 8 million uh for a 3% growth most job growth is happening in Financial Prof and Prof Financial activities in Business and Professional Services health services and private education Leisure and hospitality and the government and again the government is driving a lot of this because they drive a lot of the um health care jobs so um that's something to keep in mind that a lot of a lot of the job growth is
47:22 is is being um is being propelled um by government spending and so you know with the kind of deficits that we have nationally with the deficits that many states California has a huge budget deficit okay so you know for how much longer is government going to be able to power job growth and and I I don't know the answer to that question of course um but one would expect that you know this this kind of deficit spending can't go
47:57 on forever um and so governments are at some point are going to have to curtail H hiring and so when that happens we're going to see um job growth shrink significantly because the private job growth in the private sector um is significantly lower than it is in the government sector okay now again we're looking Nationwide so let's look at industry employment by state by state okay now these figures are from April so we'll we'll look at
48:34 the May statistics um next month but you can see total um uh nonfarm employment okay um highest growth um was in California Texas Florida North Carolina here in kind of the Mid-Atlantic States in Ohio and Illinois now what's interesting is while these these states are the ones that saw the highest job growth still California and Texas have some of the highest unemployment rates right so whether that's because more people in those states are coming into
49:11 the job market as as you know there's um more and more employment growth hard to say okay um but North and South Dakota which had the uh lowest unemployment rates also saw among the lowest uh job growth so uh let's see yeah um okay so these are in thousands so they saw um total employment um in North Dakota um 441,000 people South Dakota
49:47 467,000 people okay all right now uh okay now let's look at okay so let's look at uh the highest was education and Health Services okay so you can see this it's roughly the same um in terms of how many people state by state are working that that pretty much meets the national average government again roughly the same although you can see Pennsylvania um has you know the the the color for Pennsylvania lightened um going from um total
50:25 employment to government so they have a smaller share of their workers working in government okay it's no surprise that Virginia has a higher share because that's where basically Washington DC is okay but otherwise again you see the states that have the highest um uh employment um the same is true of government okay now let's look oh and Leisure and Hospitality okay again you can see the the the national trend is pretty similar um state by state State all right now let's look at
51:00 uh okay they don't okay information here we go so information two pretty similar to the National okay uh utilities okay a little bit different but overall still pretty pretty much the same and then now let's look at um looking for oh okay this so utilities includes trade and transportation so those kind of got mixed in in these numbers right um and then let's look at construction so again construction pretty much mirrors you know uh total total non-farm
51:37 employment right okay so you know where where your I mean it should be no surprise that states with the largest populations also have the largest employment state by state okay um and and and by sector things pretty much match uh you know the national figures okay now let's look at job openings excuse me in um let's look at what's happening so um change from March
52:12 to April 2024 you can see almost all job categories um went down uh with the exception of Private health uh private Educational Services um went up so um that's that's that's interesting given what the other map said okay uh or I mean what the other Graphics said so if we go back here right we're showing seasonally adjusted there were um uh 43,000 more government you know jobs in
52:48 government but here there's showing government employment went down by uh you know3 % so um you know why these are not tracking you know hard to say um but indeed they're showing government employment dropped from March to April let me just check one more thing here this is for April right oh I see okay here's why it's different so this is for May and these these statistics are for April so unfortunately the time periods aren't aren't matching up so so what we
53:25 can say is government hiring rebounded um and um and in general the um job growth picture rebounded in May from April where most SE sectors um declined now we can see that in in May most sectors increased okay so so that's so the the the the trend the one month trend is is is good um in terms of um
54:01 employment opportunity okay and by the way we can look at the 12month trend here let's look at this okay so over the last 12 months um and you can see by industry things are still pretty much pretty much the same as they are in the one- Monon Trend okay um most job growth came from private education and Health Services and it came from um government uh the government SE so um what does all this mean I'm going to focus on this one because um you know these are more recent figures oh wait let's look one more thing um well actually let's look
54:38 at this before we look at Java new so where is their opportunity so if we look at the last 12 months the opportunity for jobs is in construction where we've seen a quarter million new jobs in the last year um private education and Health Services where we've seen 1.1 million new jobs and government where we've seen 617,000 new jobs those and then Leisure and Hospitality we've seen over 4,000 new jobs so if you trying to figure out
55:15 where can I find a job th those are the four growing sectors there's no there's no question about it we can look at the 12mth we can look at the six Monon we can look at the thre Monon we can look at the one month they're all tracking the same okay where are where should you not be looking for jobs well Mining and logging which uh lost 9,000 jobs over the last year okay utilities which added you know 14,000 jobs um in the last year
55:50 2.4% change but still not not a lot of jobs overall uh transportation and Warehouse housing lost jobs in the last year okay manufacturing um there's been some small job growth 2.2% job growth okay um but another area to look at is business services so Business Services has seen 109,000 new jobs in the last year a half a percent growth and um Financial uh activities also has seen a half a percent growth for 42,000 new jobs okay
56:26 retail trade has also seen almost 100,000 new jobs little over a half percent in growth and wholesale trade has seen 61,000 new jobs or a 1% growth so though those are the areas construction wholesale and Retail trade um Business and Professional Services and then and then the the big the big three which are um private education and health leis Leisure and hospitality and government now you'll note by the way that Leisure and hospitality jobs tend
57:03 to be lower paying jobs so does private education and Health Services okay so the only sector that's seeing a lot of job growth that has pretty that has higher wages is government okay out of the out of the top three and and if we include construction which grew at 3% so some a lot of construction jobs are higher paying but there are also a lot that are lower paying so it depends on what you're doing in the construction sector okay but you know if if if if I
57:39 were you know talking to a young person today um and Advising them about you know what are the job prospects so gosh construction of in terms of the private sector um either um construction really is the standout in terms of finding um a good paying job followed by probably well you know manufacturing is probably next um and and well I'm sorry not manufacturing next followed by um Business and Professional Services next
58:16 um and then you know depending on what you're doing in health care services may be Health Care Services if you're doing something that you need a lot of training for um whether it's um in in in some kind of radiology or whether it's uh you know as a physician nurse that sort of thing okay so those are the areas where we're seeing job growth now let's let's wrap things up looking state by state um where job openings are um so the biggest uh areas uh the the states with the largest number of job openings
58:51 now this is going back to April because that's the most recent data we have you're seeing a Alaska um 25,000 jobs open Colorado 200,000 Virginia almost 300 uh West Virginia about 50,000 Kentucky 130,000 Arkansas 87,000 and South Carolina over 150,000 jobs okay so there's a lot of jobs available in those States now um the states with the lowest unemployment rates are North and South Dakota North Dakota has only 24,000 jobs
59:26 open South Dakota only 21,000 jobs open now California which has the highest rate of unemployment um has um o over 600,000 jobs open okay so you can see that job openings and the unemployment rate don't necessarily track right because California and South Dakota are on opposite ends of the unemployment range um and yet on on a uh uh per
60:01 percentage basis they have the lowest percentage uh um of their Workforce um you know job openings now let's yeah okay so here we go okay now I want to look at one last chart here okay so this is State layoffs dis and discharges in other words people losing their jobs where are people losing their jobs most often and you see it it's it's really this is really an interesting map because again the darker
60:38 the color the higher the percentage of people getting laid off or discharged so it's highest in Maine New Hampshire um Connecticut and Road Island uh Arizona Nevada Montana and Alaska but even at its highest it's under 2% okay so not a lot of people are are getting laid off um you know on a state-by-state basis in Texas which has a high unemployment rate nonetheless it
61:14 has one of the lowest layoff and discharge rates at 0 6% Florida 8% uh Oklahoma 7.7 Minnesota which has a strong labor market 7 Michigan point8 New York 7 okay so um overall not a lot of people getting laid off or discharged okay which shows that we're in a strong we're still in a strong labor market and even even state byst state you know while the lowest is 6%
61:50 and the highest appears I think to be 1.7 1.8 in Alaska okay but still you know just not not very high no matter where we go all right so cutting through all the nonsense which is how I build this you can you can see that while the US economy um is is not weak um it's also not particularly strong a lot of the E A lot of the economic activity especially in employment is being driven
62:25 by growth in government okay and government is not a prod producing part of society it's not manufacturing things it's not selling things it's not helping people create greater wealth like Business and Professional Services and financial activities okay so this is if if if you're feeling like wow things just don't feel great that's the reason why now you you know things vary very somewhat state by state okay and so depending on where you are um that will
63:02 also impact what you're feeling so all of these links the links to all of these data uh pages that we were just looking at are going to be in the show notes after the show posts so um you you know we we went over this pretty fast you can go back and take a look at these there's there's other charts there that you can look at if you're interested in some other data points I cover the ones that I think are most relevant but you can see that um overall even state byst state um I mean if you know you can be living in North
63:37 or South Dakota where the unemployment rate is very low but but still wage growth is is is not great compared to the rate of inflation um and you can be in California where the um where the unemployment is high 5% and and and inflation appears to be around the national average but yet if you're living in in an urban area it's significantly higher than the national average right so as you you know listen to the news and you listen to commentary and and people Express credulity over
64:13 why why are people feeling the way they're feeling when we really cut through all the nonsense we can see that there there it's not that there is terrible economic news I don't mean to say that at all but there's nothing particularly standout in economic news we're not seeing great wage growth relative to inflation we're not seeing you know tremendous job growth um which which would you know power our ability to get higher incomes it's it's really kind of you know and and I think that's why most people are feeling kind of that that's that's where it's at so
64:52 that wraps it up not only for today but for this week so so I thank you very much for tuning in hope you found this useful again all this information will be all the links will be in the show notes so you can you can take a look at all of this on your own now let's to take a look at shows coming up for next week so um on Monday at these are all Pacific Time 10: a. Pacific time my guest is Suzanne fineberg and she's a notary public and she's going to be talking about um all the changes in in
65:31 that industry and if you're doing any kind of um estate planning or if you're gonna you know if you're looking to buy a house or sell a house you're going to be dealing with a notary public so I invite you to turn in tune in and and and and hear what Suzanne has to say she's extremely knowledgeable in this area been in the business a long long time there are some really interesting things happening um in in in the notary business I know it sounds really kind of like notary but it's not they're very interesting business so please plan to
66:06 tune in on Monday at 10: a.m. Pacific and then Tuesday at 10: am is the next edition of business lessons from the military and then seven days from today on Wednesday next week at 10 am. is the next edition of uh uh people making money so once again thank you so much for joining me um any comments questions always appreciated and signing off as I always do Marie you're my bell courage at all times my