By Jeremy Duda | Arizona Mirror
Arizona’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is well above the national level, but for good reasons as its workforce continues to grow, according to the state’s economic number crunchers.
Monthly employment figures compiled by Arizona’s Office of Economic Opportunity show the rate held steady at 4.9 percent in June, hovering at or near the same rate the state has seen for nearly two years. The state’s rate was 4.9 percent in May and April, as well.
By comparison, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for the United States was 3.6 percent last month.
Doug Walls, of the Office of Economic Opportunity, said Arizona’s higher-than-average unemployment rate is because the labor force has grown so much more in Arizona than in the rest of the country. While that is primarily due to people moving to the state, Walls said, there are likely other factors, including a decrease in “discouraged workers” who had stopped looking for jobs.
