Arizona defies job reform with 40,000 job increases

PHOENIX – Last week, the Labor Department released its annual preliminary benchmark for the nation's employment numbers, reducing the number of jobs created between March 2023 and March 2024 by over eight hundred thousand.

In Arizona, the adjustment went in the opposite direction, with employment data revised upward by nearly forty thousand.

The revisions, which rely on unemployment insurance claims to back up monthly survey data, show that Arizona is not only one of the states whose employment numbers have been revised upward, but that it is also the state that leads the way. Tennessee, another fast-growing state, also saw its number of new jobs added revised upward by nearly 40,000.

Job revisions occur annually, and since 2017, Arizona jobs have been revised upward every year as part of this process. However, the revisions are now more extensive than in previous years. From 2017 to 2020, job revisions were at or near ten thousand each year. They peaked in 2022 with an adjustment of nearly fifty thousand.

Corrections are also being made at the metropolitan level. Phoenix ranks second behind Los Angeles in terms of the total number of upwardly revised positions.

Together with the preliminary labor market revision, the Ministry of Labor also released its quarterly survey on employment and wages by district.

This data tracks labor market changes across various industries and shows that Maricopa County stands out among the top 10 counties in the U.S. in terms of job growth. With a growth rate of 2.6% between the first quarter of 2023 and 2024, Maricopa has surpassed Miami-Dade as the county with the highest job growth rate. The five counties with the highest job growth are all in the country's Sunbelt region.

Not all sectors saw job growth. In Maricopa County, jobs in the information sector were particularly hard hit last year, with a 7.4% year-over-year decline. The financial sector was the only other industry to lose jobs. The largest quarter-over-quarter job growth was in the construction sector.