Officials tout record low as Arizona's unemployment rate drops
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Arizona's unemployment rate is flirting with historic lows, according to the state's Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO).
The big picture: The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for May 2024 was 3.4%, according to OEO's monthly report released Thursday.
- That's a record low under the current methodology used by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which dates to 1976, OEO labor market information director Doug Walls told Axios.
- The April unemployment rate was 3.6%.
- It's not an all-time low — under the pre-1976 methodology, Arizona's unemployment rate hit 3.2% in December 1969, Walls said.
Zoom out: Arizona is beating the national unemployment rate of 4%.
Zoom in: The state's labor force — defined as those 16 and older who are working or looking for work — increased by more than 2,000 people from April to May, and by more than 62,000 over the past year.
- The state had gained about 69,000 jobs in the preceding year.
Between the lines: The biggest job gains from April to May were in health care, which added 3,700 jobs last month, per the report.
Context: The unemployment rate reported Thursday now may not stay the same over time. BLS adjusts the numbers at the end of the year, which can retroactively change the rates.
- Two years ago OEO reported Arizona's April and May 2022 unemployment rate as 3.2%, less than the record low it reported for May 2024.
- But BLS now reports those numbers as 3.6% and 3.7%, respectively.
Friction point: Despite consistently low unemployment in recent years, polling shows Arizonans are still downbeat about the economy.
- Arizona had the highest inflation in the country two years ago, with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) seeing a 13% year-over-year increase from August 2021 to August 2022.
Yes, but: Walls said the CPI, which he described as a proxy for inflation, has improved substantially since then.
- The CPI in Arizona increased by 2.6% from April 2023 to April 2024, he said, which was lower than the national increase of 3.4%.
What they're saying: "Things are doing pretty well, despite the opinion polls," Dennis Hoffman, an economist with Arizona State University's W.P. Carey School of Business, told Axios. "To an economist, this looks like a pretty strong economy. It's really good news."