USA Today has created an interactive visualization showing a jobs growth forecast from economic consulting firm Moody’s Economy.com. You can view the one year forecast change in jobs for the entire nation by state. When looking at the forecast by state, Texas looks to improve by 1.3% while Nevada continues to plummet by 1.9%. If the forecast is true, then Texas will improve from a November 2009 unemplyment rate of 8% to 6.7% in Novemerb 2010. Nevada will worsen from 12.3% to 14.2% over the same time period. Having 1 out of ever 7 people “officially” out of work (the U-3 number) is not good news for Nevada, and that does not count those who are discouraged and given up looking (the U-6 number).
You can view the one year forecast change in jobs for one of 384 metropolitan areas. Huntsville, AL should improve the most with a 3.2% decrease in unemployment. Vero Beach, FL will fare the worst with its unemplyment rate increasing by 3.6%.
On both the state and metro level, you can see how jobs will fare in one of fourteen different categories. The data is also given for each quarter out to the year 2013.
The problem with these information visualization graphics is that the headline does not match up with the data. The headline says “Jobs may rebound in 2010“. Yet when you take a look at the jobs forecast for the United States for all sectors, the data says that the job rate will worsen by 0.2% from November 2009 to November 2010. This means that the unemployment rate will worsen from 10% to 10.2% over the course of the year.
If you follow the unemployment rate, then another item to be aware of is the annual revision of jobs that occurs every January, and is scheduled to be announced on February 5th. The preliminary benchmark payroll revision is a minus 824,000 jobs. In other words, the BLS has been too optomistic on the unemployment rate over the past year.
This graphic shows actual job growth through third-quarter 2009 and Moody’s Economy.com’s forecasted job growth for fourth-quarter 2009 through third-quarter 2013. It covers every state, the District of Columbia and 384 metro areas, broken down by fourteen industry sectors.
But it could be worse. Spain has 19.3% unemployment.
via USA Today: Jobs may rebound in 2010
