Only four states recorded statistically significant increases in nonfarm payroll employment in August 2026, while employment was essentially unchanged in the other 46 states and the District of Columbia, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ August State Employment and Unemployment release published September 18 at 10 a.m. ET.
California posted the largest significant increase, adding 39,400 jobs, followed by Wisconsin with 11,800, South Carolina with 10,800, and New Mexico with 5,500. The gains were seasonally adjusted and measured from July to August.
The four statistically significant increases totaled 67,500 jobs, an Investozora calculation using the individual state changes published by BLS. That figure should not be treated as the total change across all states because states classified as “essentially unchanged” can still show numerical increases or decreases that are not statistically significant.
Gains Stay Concentrated
The August results represented a broader geographic showing than in July, but significant job growth was still concentrated in a small number of states.
In the previous July state employment release, only Maryland posted a statistically significant payroll gain, adding 11,700 jobs, while New Jersey registered a significant decline of 25,600. Forty-eight states and the District were classified as essentially unchanged.
August therefore increased the number of states with significant monthly payroll gains from one to four, while no state registered a statistically significant monthly decline.
Among the four August gainers, New Mexico recorded the largest percentage increase at 0.6%. Wisconsin and South Carolina each rose 0.4%, while California increased 0.2%. California nevertheless accounted for the largest absolute increase because of its much larger employment base.
BLS’s seasonally adjusted state payroll table measures jobs by the location of the establishment rather than by where workers live. The August figures are preliminary and remain subject to revision as additional establishment-survey information becomes available. BLS also seasonally adjusts selected state employment series to remove recurring seasonal patterns.
Yearly Growth Narrow
The geographic concentration was also visible over the longer comparison period. Payroll employment was significantly higher than a year earlier in only eight states, while the District of Columbia recorded a significant decline and 42 states were essentially unchanged.
Texas had the largest year-over-year increase at 159,400 jobs, followed by California at 138,500 and North Carolina at 65,600. Louisiana, New Mexico and South Carolina recorded the largest percentage increases, each at 1.6%. The District of Columbia was the only jurisdiction with a significant year-over-year decline, losing 27,000 jobs, or 3.6%.
That narrow state-level pattern adds geographic context to Investozora’s earlier coverage of the softening U.S. labor market and the July JOLTS report showing 7.3 million job openings. The state data do not by themselves establish whether national hiring is accelerating or weakening; they show where payroll movements were large enough relative to sampling uncertainty to be statistically significant.
What Comes Next
The same BLS release showed the national unemployment rate at 4.1% in August, unchanged from July. Eight states and the District of Columbia recorded significant monthly declines in their unemployment rates, while 42 states had no notable change.
The next geographic labor-market update will be the August Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment report on September 30 at 10 a.m. ET.
BLS is scheduled to publish September state employment and unemployment data on October 20 at 10 a.m. ET, providing the next test of whether significant payroll growth spreads beyond the small group of states seen in August.
