by Valorie Hanni Rice
Senior Specialist, Business Information
The U.S. gained only 142,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in September while July and August job numbers were revised downward. The number of jobs gained has now averaged 198,000 a month for 2015. Over the year job growth for September was 2.0%. Health care and professional services were the sectors with the highest number of jobs added, while mining lost jobs. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.1% for the month. http://www.bls.gov/ces/news.htm
Arizona’s state personal income grew by 1.1% in second quarter 2015, higher than the average for the nation of 0.9%. Western states had the most increases in personal income with Washington and Nevada ranking highest in percent increase over the quarter, while Arizona was 13th. http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/regional/spi/spi_newsrelease.htm
Initial unemployment claims in Arizona were higher the week ending September 19 at 3,742 compared to 3,277 the week before. The four-week moving average decreased slightly to 3,697, the lowest it has been since the beginning of the year. The number of initial jobless claims in the U.S. for the week ending September 26 moved up to 277,000. The four-week average decreased to 270,750 while the number of continued claims fell to the lowest number it has been for 15 years. http://workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/unemploy/claims_arch.asp
Phoenix had a 4.6% increase in home prices over the year in July, according to S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices September 29 release. This was just below the U.S. figure of 4.7%. San Francisco and Denver metro areas had the highest one-year home price growth for July at 10.4% and 10.3%, respectively. http://www.spindices.com/index-family/real-estate/sp-case-shiller
The Bureau of Economic Analysis released GDP by metropolitan areas for 2014 on September 23. Only one Arizona metro area had real GDP growth better than the U.S. metro average of 2.3% and that was Prescott with 2.4% growth. The rest of Arizona metropolitan areas in order of growth over 2014 were: Phoenix, 1.8%; Lake Havasu City-Kingman, 1.5%; Tucson, 0.5%; Flagstaff, -0.2%; Yuma, -1.5%; and Sierra Vista-Douglas, -2.8%. http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/regional/gdp_metro/2015/gdp_metro0915.htm
There were 1,443 bankruptcies filed in Arizona during August, down 11.1% from the same month a year ago. The Yuma office (La Paz, Mohave, and Yuma counties) had the biggest decrease in the number of filings, with 21.6% less than August of last year. The Tucson office (Cochise, Graham, Greenlee, Pima, Pinal, and Santa Cruz) was down 18.5% while the Phoenix office (Apache, Coconino, Gila, Maricopa, Navajo, and Yavapai) was down 7.9%. Year to date, Arizona bankruptcies are down 17.4%. http://www.azb.uscourts.gov/filing-statistics
Hands and calculator photo courtesy Shutterstock.
