Unemployment Rates Fall in 226 U.S. Metropolitan Areas, New BLS Data Show

Unemployment rates were lower in September than a year earlier in 226 of the nation’s 387 metropolitan areas, according to figures released Wednesday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Rates rose in 138 areas and were unchanged in 23, indicating improvement across more than half of the metropolitan labor markets covered by the report.

The declines were far from universal. Forty-eight areas reported jobless rates below 3.0%, but five had rates of at least 8.0%. The national unemployment rate used in the metropolitan comparison was 4.0%, not seasonally adjusted, and was little changed from September of the previous year.

The headline count is a year-over-year comparison of September 2026 with September 2025, not a measure of how many cities improved between August and September. The BLS metropolitan employment and unemployment report also includes payroll-job estimates, which offer a notably different view of local hiring. Falling unemployment and an increase in the number of jobs are related concepts, but they are not interchangeable.

Jobless rates ranged from 1.7% to 20.8% across metro areas

Bismarck, North Dakota, and Rapid City, South Dakota, recorded unemployment rates of 1.7%, as did the Sioux Falls metropolitan area spanning South Dakota and Minnesota. They shared the lowest readings in the report. At the other end, El Centro, California, had a 20.8% jobless rate, followed by Yuma, Arizona, at 14.5%.

Most areas remained below the national unadjusted rate: 223 of the 387 metropolitan areas posted unemployment below 4.0%, compared with 145 above that mark and 19 at exactly 4.0%. These are different comparisons from the count of areas where rates improved. A local jobless rate can be higher than the national figure and still be lower than it was a year earlier.

The steepest year-over-year decline occurred in Eagle Pass, Texas, where unemployment fell 2.5 percentage points. Vineland, New Jersey, followed with a 2.2-point reduction, and another 28 areas registered decreases of at least 1 percentage point. Such changes measure movement in the unemployment rate, not a percentage change in the number of unemployed people.

Rates moved in the other direction in several Connecticut markets. New Haven and Waterbury-Shelton each recorded a 1.2-percentage-point increase from the previous September, the largest rises in the nation. Four other metropolitan areas reported increases of at least 1 point. The contrast with Eagle Pass and Vineland illustrates why the national count of improving areas cannot describe conditions in any particular city.

The unemployment rate measures the number of unemployed residents as a share of the civilian labor force. It can therefore change when either the number of people out of work or the size of the labor force changes. The metro-level rate figures alone do not establish that every area with a decline added jobs, nor do they identify the reasons for individual local movements.

Large metropolitan areas showed a mixed labor-market picture

Among the 56 metropolitan areas with populations of at least 1 million in the 2020 Census, unemployment rates fell from a year earlier in 31, rose in 21 and were unchanged in four. That division was less one-sided than the national headline might suggest, even though declines still outnumbered increases in the largest markets.

Cleveland had the lowest September unemployment rate among these large metropolitan areas, at 1.9%, while Fresno, California, had the highest, at 7.3%. Cleveland also recorded the largest year-over-year improvement in the group, with its rate down 1.4 percentage points. The Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington region followed with a 1.2-point decrease.

Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, Connecticut, had the largest rate increase among metropolitan areas of at least 1 million people, rising 1.1 percentage points from a year earlier. Taken together, the large-area readings show that a majority of metros can report lower unemployment without every major regional economy following the same pattern.

The report also separates 37 metropolitan divisions within 13 of the most populous metro areas. These divisions are smaller labor-market units, not additional cities to add to the headline total of 387. Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall, Florida, had the lowest division-level unemployment rate, at 1.9%, while Detroit-Dearborn-Livonia, Michigan, had the highest, at 6.7%.

Unemployment rates declined over the year in 21 divisions, increased in 12 and held steady in four. Camden and Newark, both in New Jersey, had the largest decreases, at 1.7 percentage points each. Examining divisions can reveal differences within an otherwise broad metropolitan region, but the separate figures should not be mistaken for a second set of metropolitan-area results.

Payroll employment changed significantly in only 14 metros

Job counts presented a more restrained picture than unemployment rates. Nonfarm payroll employment increased from a year earlier in 11 metropolitan areas and decreased in three, while BLS classified the remaining 373 areas as essentially unchanged. The agency reports metropolitan payroll changes in its release only when they meet its statistical significance threshold, set at the 90% confidence level.

Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas, recorded the largest absolute payroll gain, adding 43,900 jobs over the year. Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, North Carolina-South Carolina, gained 25,400, and Salt Lake City-Murray, Utah, added 22,400. By percentage, the strongest increases were in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and Myrtle Beach-Conway-North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, both at 3.6%.

Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, covering the District of Columbia and surrounding states, recorded the largest payroll decline in absolute terms, losing 61,000 jobs, or 1.8%, over the year. Bloomington, Indiana, lost 3,800 jobs, a 4.7% drop, while Flagstaff, Arizona, lost 2,800, or 3.9%. BLS did not attribute those losses to a single cause in the metropolitan release.

Within the group of 56 metro areas with at least 1 million residents, only six posted statistically significant payroll gains and one recorded a decline; the other 49 were essentially unchanged. That does not mean employment was identical to its year-earlier level in those 49 markets. It means the changes did not clear the statistical threshold used for the report’s payroll analysis.

The apparent difference between the two sets of figures reflects how they are constructed. Local unemployment estimates describe people by where they live and calculate the jobless share of the labor force. Payroll estimates count jobs at employers’ workplaces, and a person appearing on more than one payroll can be counted more than once. The measures answer different questions, so a lower unemployment rate need not coincide with a statistically significant increase in payroll positions.

Both sets of September metropolitan figures are not seasonally adjusted, making the year-over-year basis especially important when comparing local labor markets. The estimates are also subject to revision as more information becomes available. BLS has scheduled the next metropolitan employment and unemployment release, covering October, for December 2 at 10 a.m. Eastern time.