New Study from MoneyRates Shows the Job Markets Best Weathering the Pandemic

Utah’s job market has endured the coronavirus better than other states. Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming and South Dakota have also held strong.

With the coronavirus battering nearly every business sector and costing about twenty million jobs so far, MoneyRates.com examines the pandemic’s toll on each state’s job market. The personal finance resource releases its new study which aims to assist job seekers by identifying the job markets that are best holding up under historically tough economic conditions.

Read More: M Financial Group Licenses FAST Software to Enable New Digital Ecosystem for Member Firms

The report analyzes the job market condition in every state (plus the District of Columbia) based on four factors:

• Unemployment rate
• Change in the unemployment rate since coronavirus lockdowns began
• Exposure to industry sectors that have been most vulnerable to lockdowns
• The number of job seekers per most recently-reported number of job openings in each state

Based on the analysis, Utah’s job market is best weathering COVID-19 economic challenges. While the average state unemployment rate has surged to more than 13%, Utah’s is less than half that. It also has just 1.3 job seekers for every opening, and its job market is less dependent on highly vulnerable industries than those of most states. Utah was buoyed by ranking among the 10 best states in each of the study’s four categories. Using this analysis, the top ten job markets include:

Read More: Abrigo Adds Transparent Artificial Intelligence Scenarios, Direct File to FinCEN to its Financial Crime Prevention Software

1. Utah
2. Kansas
3. Nebraska
4. Wyoming
5. South Dakota
6. Indiana (tie)
7. Virginia (tie)
8. Arizona
9. Colorado
10. North Dakota

While all job markets have suffered from the crisis, conditions vary greatly from state to state based on the sectors that drive their economies. For context, the industry sectors hardest hit by job losses (as a percentage) since the end of February are:

• Leisure and hospitality
• Construction; trade, transportation and utilities
• Education and health services
• Other services (which includes things like hair salons and auto repair shops)

Looking at the District of Columbia for example, 42.28% of its job market is exposed to these sectors, compared to Nevada, where 63.35% of the job market depends on these types of jobs.

Read More: Strider Announces John Mullen, Former Assistant Director of CIA, Joins Company as Advisor