April 25, 2022

The unemployment rate in South Dakota is back to pre-pandemic levels with the March estimate of 2.5 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 South Dakota Department of Labor & Regulation.

March’s unemployment rate represents 11,600 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 14,700 unemployed South Dakotans.

The state’s unemployment rate for February was 2.6 percent.

In the Sioux Falls metro area, the unemployment rate in March was 2.3 percent, compared with 2.9 percent two years ago. Those figures aren’t seasonally adjusted. The jobless rate jumped to 8.4 percent in April 2020 but rebounded to pre-pandemic levels within six months.

This year’s rate for March was down from 2.7 percent in February.

The jobless rate represents 3,673 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 161,058, according to statistics from the that have not been seasonally adjusted.

In February, there were 4,104 people who were unemployed out of a labor force of 158,401.

In March 2021, the unemployment rate was 3.3 percent, and there were 5,165 people who were out of work.

Nonfarm wage and salaried worker levels in the metro area rose from February to March by 2,100 people to 162,100, a gain of 1.3 percent. The category of mining, logging and construction saw the biggest increase at 8.8 percent, a gain of 800 workers from February. The professional and business services category added 1,000 workers, an increase of 7 percent.

Two categories saw declines: education and health services, and financial activities, which both dropped less than 1 percent.

Compared with a year ago, nonfarm wage and salaried worker levels are up 2.9 percent in the Sioux Falls area.

In the Sioux Falls area, there were 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 16,026 openings a year ago.

The national seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in March was 3.6 percent, compared with 6 percent a year ago. It was 3.8 percent in February.