(The Center Square) – Michigan’s unemployment rate once again dropped, but still remains one of the highest nationally.
That comes as the national unemployment increased over the same period, from September to November.
“Although the state lacked several key labor metrics for October, data for the two-month period from September to November revealed continued trends of a declining unemployment rate and total labor force,” said Wayne Rourke, labor market information director for Michigan’s Center for Data and Analytics.
In November, Michigan’s unemployment rate decreased slightly to 5%. That is a drop of just 0.1% from September and means Michigan still has the fifth-highest unemployment of any state nationwide, according to data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
California, Nevada, New Jersey and Oregon are the only states with higher unemployment rates than Michigan. South Dakota has the lowest unemployment rate nationally at just 2.1%.
This is just the second look at unemployment numbers in Michigan since the federal government shutdown delayed the regular monthly reports.
The shutdown lasted from Oct. 1 to Nov. 12 and, while the government retroactively released the September unemployment numbers, it skipped the October report altogether. That makes the November numbers the most up-to-date.
In November, the national unemployment rate was 4.6%, which was a 0.2% increase from September’s previous report. While Michigan’s rate has been trending down since its June high of 5.4%, the national unemployment rate has been slowly trending upward in recent months.
Michigan has declining overall employment.
So, while the number of unemployed people fell by 7,000 to 252,195, the labor force also dropped by 13,000. That means, over the past year, Michigan’s total labor force has dropped from 5,080,658 to 5,042,695, or just less than 1%. That comes while the labor force is increasing nationally.
Participation in the labor force is 61.1% in Michigan, 62.5% nationally.
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The trade sector had the largest increase in November, bucking some concerns about the impact of tariffs on those jobs. Over the past year, private education and health services (up 12,000), government (up 11,000), and construction (up 10,000) had the most pronounced job gains.
Opinions are divided on what is causing Michigan’s high unemployment compared to other states. Democrats say issues like tariffs; Republicans lay the blame on economic policies pushed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.