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Overview of South Dakota labor market

January 2014 labor force and nonfarm industry employment data is now available online. See an overview of the new data.

Snapshot of South Dakota's economy

Get a quick synopsis, or snapshot, of the most current data available for numerous closely watched economic indicators.

Labor market information barometer

A real time labor market Information line graph, "LMI Barometer," graphically monitors fluctuations in the state's labor market, comparing the number of South Dakota residents seeking employment with the number of available jobs and the number of New Hires reported, using the most current data possible. See the LMI Barometer.

March 17: The sharing o' the green

Even as a seemingly eternal winter casts a blue-gray chill across South Dakota, pockets of green will sprout soon - St. Patrick's Day, in all its emerald glory, is nigh. As we celebrate St. Patrick's Day with some fun facts, we'll also look at some South Dakota industries that may be graced by the Luck o' the Irish as March 17 draws near.

National labor market statistics for February 2014 released

Nationally, both the number of unemployed persons (10.5 million) and the unemployment rate (6.7 percent) changed little in February. The jobless rate has shown little movement since December. Over the year, the number of unemployed persons and the unemployment rate were down by 1.6 million and 1.0 percentage point, respectively.

The nation's nonfarm payroll employment rose by 175,000 in February. Job growth averaged 189,000 per month over the prior 12 months. In February, job gains occurred in professional and business services and in wholesale trade, while information lost jobs.

See the full Employment Situation Summary published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Release of benchmarked data

Revised statewide annual labor force data for 2009-2013 was released in our online data retrieval system February 28, 2014. Please visit our menu page for labor force data to retrieve the revised data.

Revised statewide and substate nonfarm wage and salaried worker data for 2012-2013 was released March 10, 2014. Please visit our menu page for nonfarm data anytime after March 10 at 9 a.m. to retrieve the revised data.

Revised annual labor force data for 2009-2013 for all other geographic areas within South Dakota will be released in our online data retrieval systems on April 18, 2014.

The data is being revised because of regularly scheduled benchmarking of the data. For more information, see " benchmarking" on our Definitions page.

Seasonally adjusted December labor force data for metro areas available

Seasonally adjusted labor force data for South Dakota's Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) of Rapid City and Sioux Falls for December 2013 was released February 5 by the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). See the BLS news release or download the data from the BLS website now. Historical data back to 2000 is available upon request to the BLS. January 2014 data for the metro areas will be available from BLS March 21. See our release dates for other future releases. For more information about seasonally adjusted labor force data for metropolitan areas, please see the Question and Answer document prepared by BLS.

Release dates

Click here to find out when the next data release from LMIC will be.