The Nashville, Tennessee, metropolitan area posted the lowest jobless rate among US metro areas with a population of 1 million or more in April at 2.2%, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.
Conversely, the Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise area of Nevada had the highest rate at 5.2%.
Overall, 42 large areas posted year-over-year unemployment rate increases, two saw decreases and seven had no change.
The largest rate increase occurred in Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, Maryland, and the Providence-Warwick area in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, each up 1.2 percentage points. On the other hand, the largest jobless rate decline was in the Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale area in Arizona, down 0.8 of a percentage point.
Among metropolitan areas of all sizes, Ames in Iowa and Hattiesburg and Jackson in Mississippi recorded the lowest unemployment rates at 1.6% each in April. The next lowest rates were in Burlington-South Burlington, Vermont, and Iowa City, Iowa, both at 1.7%.
El Centro, California, had the highest jobless rate among metro areas of all sizes at 15.7%.
The BLS noted that 11 of the most populous metropolitan areas in the US comprise 38 metropolitan divisions, essentially separately identifiable employment centers. In April, the Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall area of Florida had the lowest division unemployment rate at 2.1%, while the Elgin area of Illinois had the highest rate at 5.2%.