A summary is below. More details are available on our State Employment Page.

January 22, 2019

Summary

• South Dakota added 1,300 jobs and the unemployment rate declined by 0.1 percentage point to 2.9 percent in December according to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data.

• Over the past twelve months, South Dakota added 8,800 jobs and the unemployment rate fell by 0.5 percentage point from 3.4 percent.

• In December, South Dakota's private sector added 1,400 jobs and over the past twelve months, it created 8,200 jobs.

• The number of unemployed South Dakotans fell by 53 in December, and over the past year, 5,717 South Dakotans found jobs.

• South Dakota’s labor force participation rate remains unchanged from 68.7 percent in December.  Since last year, the labor force participation rate fell 0.2 percentage point.

• The national unemployment rate rose by 0.2 percentage point to 3.9 percent in December.  State employment and unemployment data for January is scheduled for release on March 11, 2019.  The national employment situation report for January will be released on Friday, February 1, 2019.