September unemployment rates rose in 25 states and fell in 21 compared with last year, the government reported Dec. 11 in a shutdown-delayed analysis.
The largest increase compared with September 2024 was in Oregon, where the rate rose from 4.2% to 5.2%, followed by the District of Columbia, increasing from 5.3% to 6.2% and Delaware, up from 3.6% to 4.5%.
The largest drops were in Indiana, down from 4.4% to 3.7%, Illinois (5.0% to 4.4%) and Kentucky (5.3% to 4.7%).
Nationally unemployment rose to 4.4% from 4.1% last year and the number of unemployed people looking for work increased from 6.9 million to 7.6 million. September saw a better-than-expected increase of 119,000 in payroll jobs compared to August, after a loss of 4,000 in August.
There will be no October national employment report because the shutdown interrupted information collection. A November national report is scheduled for release Dec. 16. The state report for September had been delayed from its usual release date in October.
An alternative national jobs estimate for November, from private payroll processor ADP, showed a net loss of 32,000 jobs and bigger losses for small businesses with less than 50 employees, where jobs were down by 120,000 for the month. Professional services, tech and manufacturing had the largest losses
The lowest unemployment rate was in South Dakota, at 2%. There, a labor shortage is driving up hiring costs for state agencies and projects. The highest was 6.2% in the District of Columbia, reflecting the Trump administration’s federal layoffs.
Other high unemployment rates were reported in California (5.6%), Nevada (5.3%), New Jersey and Oregon (5.2%), and Michigan (5.1%).
The state-by-state unemployment report was delayed by the 43-day federal shutdown, which lasted until Nov. 12.
Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Kentucky Lantern, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
This article is republished under a Creative Commons license from Kentucky Lantern, which is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com. Follow Kentucky Lantern on Facebook and Twitter.
Tim Henderson covers demographics for Stateline. He has been a reporter at the Miami Herald, the Cincinnati Enquirer and The Journal News in suburban New York. Henderson became fascinated with census data in the early 1990s, when AOL offered the first computerized reports. Since then he has broken stories about population trends in South Florida, including a housing affordability analysis included in the 2007 Pulitzer-winning series "House of Lies" for the Miami Herald, and a prize-winning analysis of public pension irregularities for The Journal News. He has been a member and trainer for the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting since its inception 20 years ago, specializing in online data access and visualization along with demographics.
