States Adding the Most Jobs in March

States reporting the strongest job gains last month included Florida, North Carolina and Georgia. See totals for your state.

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In Florida, the new unemployment benefits system, CONNECT, is too broken to even provide information regarding how many Floridians have not received their benefits payments. In this photo from 2013, Racheel Weston stood in line with a few hundred other job seekers during the job fair that the Miami Marlins hosted at Marlins Park in Miami.
AP/J Pat Carter
New figures published by the Labor Department this morning show that a few states added notable tallies of jobs in March.

Florida recorded job gains of about 23,000 last month, with nearly half the growth coming from the leisure and hospitality sector. Other states adding the most jobs included North Carolina (+19,400), Georgia (+14,600) and California (+11,800).

Twenty-one states reported declines in their unemployment rates. Although Ohio added just 600 positions, its unemployment rate (measured by a different survey of households) fell 0.4 percent --more than any other state.

Most states saw payroll employment and jobless rates change little over the month.

A few states did, though, post weaker jobs reports. Pennsylvania lost an estimated 8,400 jobs, while Virginia’s payroll employment declined by 5,100. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia registered unemployment rate increases for March.

While Rhode Island’s unemployment rate has slowly declined over the past several months, its current rate of 8.7 percent remains the nation’s highest.

The national unemployment rate of 6.7 percent hasn’t moved much recently after falling for most of last year. 



State Monthly Employment Change Year-Over-Year Employment Change March Nonfarm Employment March Unemployment Rate Feb.-March Unemployment Rate Change
Florida 22,900 225,100 7,742,900 6.3 0.1
North Carolina 19,400 65,000 4,100,300 6.3 -0.1
Georgia 14,600 68,000 4,078,700 7 -0.1
California 11,800 325,100 15,365,500 8.1 0
South Carolina 10,200 37,600 1,922,600 5.5 -0.2
Texas 9,100 310,000 11,416,600 5.5 -0.2
Massachusetts 8,100 50,400 3,396,400 6.3 -0.2
Oregon 7,500 46,300 1,708,900 6.9 0.1
Utah 7,100 35,200 1,317,000 4.1 0.2
Wisconsin 6,900 38,400 2,849,300 5.9 -0.2
Washington 6,700 59,500 3,029,700 6.3 0
Arizona 6,200 47,800 2,550,900 7.3 0
Connecticut 4,900 9,400 1,658,900 7 0
Nevada 4,700 44,800 1,210,100 8.5 0
Indiana 4,600 46,000 2,966,100 5.9 -0.2
Tennessee 4,200 46,100 2,785,500 6.7 -0.2
Missouri 3,500 43,600 2,757,700 6.7 0.3
Colorado 3,300 61,000 2,423,300 6.2 0.1
New Hampshire 2,600 10,100 648,200 4.5 -0.2
Minnesota 2,600 43,900 2,813,900 4.8 0
Kansas 2,500 17,300 1,383,500 4.9 0
Maryland 2,300 14,000 2,606,500 5.6 0
North Dakota 2,300 19,800 459,500 2.6 0
Oklahoma 2,100 22,900 1,651,600 4.9 -0.1
Wyoming 1,600 4,700 294,600 4 -0.2
Arkansas 1,200 12,900 1,189,800 6.9 -0.2
Maine 1,100 8,000 607,100 5.9 -0.2
Louisiana 900 10,900 1,955,400 4.5 0
Hawaii 600 5,200 620,700 4.5 -0.1
Vermont 600 2,200 308,700 3.4 -0.3
Ohio 600 53,600 5,282,900 6.1 -0.4
West Virginia 400 3,000 766,900 6.1 0.2
Montana 300 4,800 452,800 5.1 0
Alabama 300 14,400 1,912,800 6.7 0.3
District of Columbia 0 1,600 745,700 7.5 0.1
Delaware -100 7,500 432,600 5.9 0
Alaska -200 -600 335,600 6.6 0.1
South Dakota -300 2,800 419,600 3.7 0.1
Michigan -400 20,300 4,115,000 7.5 -0.2
Idaho -400 4,000 640,700 5.2 -0.1
Rhode Island -800 6,400 475,800 8.7 -0.3
New York -900 103,500 8,981,000 6.9 0.1
New Jersey -1,300 -1,900 3,926,900 7.2 0.1
New Mexico -1,300 -1,900 809,800 7 0.3
Mississippi -1,400 5,900 1,113,400 7.6 0.2
Iowa -1,700 17,300 1,538,100 4.5 0.1
Kentucky -2,400 -3,800 1,830,200 7.9 0.1
Nebraska -2,900 10,100 985,700 3.7 0.1
Illinois -3,200 29,400 5,814,900 8.4 -0.3
Virginia -5,100 -600 3,764,800 5 0.1
Pennsylvania -8,400 17,200 5,758,900 6 -0.2

Source: BLS, seasonally-adjusted data. March figures are preliminary.
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