By the time the coronavirus is through, not a single corner of the globe will be unaffected. The US alone has lost over twenty million jobs in just a few months.
Financial wealth firm MoneyRates.com released a report examining current job markets across the United States. It examined each U.S. state and how their job market is weathering the pandemic by measuring the unemployment rate, exposure to vulnerable industry sectors, the number of job-seekers per number of job openings, and the change in the unemployment rate since the pandemic lockdowns began
Based on these metrics, the top ten States with strong job markets are:
- Utah
- Kansas
- Nebraska
- Wyoming
- South Dakota
- A tie between Indiana and Virginia
- Arizona
- Colorado
- North Dakota
Unemployment rates, on average, rose over 13% since February. But this number jumped to over 20% in states like Washington, Michigan, and Nevada with the highest at 23.52%.
However, a number of states did not experience such an increase such as South Dakota that sits at #5 on the list with one of the lowest unemployment rates of only 5.6%.
The composition of each states job market was a major factor in determining the impact of the virus and where the state placed on the list. Construction, hospitality, education and health services, and other services like hair salons have been hit the hardest.
Richard Barrington, study author and Senior Financial Analyst for MoneyRates.com, explains further. “Jobs that can be done in wide-open spaces or are information-based and can be conducted remotely have held up relatively well. Those that are travel-based or hands-on services have been hardest hit. Some states have much higher concentrations of the hardest hit jobs than others.”
