WASHINGTON — The unemployment rate in the Washington metro area was 3.8 percent in January, up from a 10-year low of 3.3 percent in December.
The District’s unemployment rate peaked at 6.9 percent in February 2010. Its lowest unemployment rate, based on data going back to 1990, was 2.9 percent in April 2008.
The D.C.-area added a net 43,800 jobs between January 2017 and January 2018, a job growth rate of 1.4 percent.
Midland, Texas had the nation’s largest year-over-year job growth rate in January, at 10.3 percent.
The Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics says unemployment rates were lower in 337 of the 388 metro areas tracked in January.
Ames, Iowa had the nation’s lowest January jobless rate of just 1.8 percent, followed closely by Honolulu’s January unemployment rate of 2.0 percent. El Centro, California, a small, agricultural community near central California’s Mexican Border, had a January unemployment rate of 17.0 percent, the highest in the nation.
Among big cities — those with a population of 1 million or more — Nashville logged the lowest January unemployment rate at 2.8 percent. Buffalo, New York, had the highest, at 6.2 percent.
Baltimore’s January unemployment rate jumped sharply in January to 4.7 percent, from 3.9 percent in December. The Baltimore metro added 17,300 jobs between January 2017 and January 2018, a job growth rate of 1.3 percent.
The Bureau of Labor Statistic’s monthly report on unemployment rates, not seasonally adjusted, and job growth is posted monthly online.
