June 6, 2022

The unemployment rate in the Sioux Falls metro area dipped to 1.9 percent in April, the lowest it has been since September 2018.

The April rate is down from 2.3 percent in March and 2.9 percent a year ago, according to statistics from the South Dakota Department of Labor & Regulation that haven’t been seasonally adjusted.

The jobless rate represents 3,131 residents in the four-county MSA who do not have jobs, have actively looked for one in the past four weeks and are available to work. The total labor force, those who are employed and unemployed, is 161,912.

In March, there were 3,673 people who were unemployed out of a labor force of 161,058.

Nonfarm wage and salaried worker levels in the metro area rose from March to April by 2,600 people to 164,400, a gain of 1.6 percent. The category of mining, logging and construction saw the biggest increase at 10.2 percent, a gain of 1,000 workers from March. The professional and business services category added 900 workers, an increase of 5.9 percent.

The only category to see a decline was trade, transportation and utilities, and that was less than 1 percent. Three categories saw no growth: leisure and hospitality, government and information.

Compared with a year ago, nonfarm wage and salaried worker levels are up 2.6 percent in the Sioux Falls area.

In the Sioux Falls area, there were 20,801 openings in April, compared with 21,729 job openings in March, according to the state’s virtual labor market data system, which pulls in information from online job postings. That compares with 16,071 openings a year ago.

The unemployment rate in South Dakota has fallen below pre-pandemic levels for the first time with the April estimate of 2.3 percent.

As the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic began to set in two years ago, the state’s unemployment rate went from 2.5 percent in March 2020 to 8.8 percent in April 2020, according to seasonally adjusted statistics from the Labor Department. The state’s jobless rate matched the 2.5 percent rate in March of this year.

April’s unemployment rate represents 11,000 people who do not have jobs, have actively looked for one in the past four weeks and are available to work. A year ago, the rate was 3.2 percent, and there were 14,900 unemployed South Dakotans.

The national seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in April was unchanged from March at 3.6 percent, and down from 6 percent a year ago.