State unemployment falls in April

Arkansas’ employment picture continued to improve in April, with the state’s unemployment rate falling to 3.6% and jobs added to its workforce for the fourth consecutive month.

The unemployment rate for Arkansas was down onetenth of a percentage point at 3.6% in April from 3.7% in March and down from 3.9% from the same month a year ago, according to data from the U.S. Department of Labor released by the Arkansas Department of Workforce Development on Friday.

Nationally, the unemployment rate stood at 3.6% as well, down from 3.8% in March.

Arkansas’ unemployment rate for April is in record territory and likely won’t decline much further, said Michael Pakko, chief economist at the Arkansas Economic Development Institute at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

“It’s about as low as it goes,” he said in an interview Friday.

He noted the unemployment rate for the state has been below 4% for the past three years.

Greg Kaza, executive director of the Arkansas Policy Foundation, said that if there is no national decline in employment in the second quarter, the economic expansion will emerge as the longest in U.S. history.

“The unprecedented duration of the expansion is reflected in last month’s growth of Arkansas payroll employment and decline in the unemployment rate,” he wrote in an emailed statement.

The state added 8,700 nonfarm payroll jobs since March and 14,300 jobs since April of 2018. The number

of unemployed in April was 49,633, down 2.1% from 50,739 in March and down 1.7% from 50,487 for April 2018.

Mervin Jebaraj, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville said the addition of jobs, both when compared to last month and year over year, is a good sign. He added the gains came in various segments across the sector, which points toward solid, sustained growth.

Arkansas’ nonfarm payroll employment was 1,279,000, with nine sectors seeing increases, with three of those gains of at least 2,000 jobs. Employment in construction saw 2,300 more jobs, professional and business services jobs were up 2,100 and the leisure and hospitality segment added 2,000.

Vermont, at 2.2%, and North Dakota, at 2.3%, posted the lowest unemployment rates in the United States in April, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Alaska had the highest unemployment rate, at 6.5%, followed by the District of Columbia at 5.6%, and New Mexico at 5%.

Arkansas’ 3.6% unemployment rate ranked it at 23rd in the nation.