Payroll job growth, 12-month change
Percent change in seasonally adjusted nonfarm payroll employment from the same month a year earlier, from the Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Invokely computes it from the two published job counts, shown with each value, and rounds it to one decimal as BLS does in its state release. The latest month is preliminary. Each year BLS benchmarks the series to unemployment insurance tax records and revises past years. State estimates come out about two weeks after the national ones, and the states do not add up to the national total because each is estimated separately.
Key facts
- Payroll job growth, 12-month change in the United States was 0.3% in September 2026, according to BLS.
- Louisiana had the highest payroll job growth, 12-month change of 51 states in August 2026, at 1.6%, and District of Columbia the lowest, at -3.6%. Source: BLS.
- Published for 52 places, with figures from January 1940 to September 2026.
Rankings
US states by payroll job growth, 12-month change, August 2026
Places with data
Countries
Regions and states
- California
- Texas
- Florida
- New York
- Pennsylvania
- Illinois
- Ohio
- Georgia
- North Carolina
- Michigan
- Nebraska
- Montana
- New Hampshire
- Nevada
- New Mexico
- New Jersey
Use this data in your AI agent
Invokely serves this figure to AI assistants through MCP and to code through a REST API, with the source and citation attached. Ask your assistant:
Which places have the highest payroll job growth, 12-month change? Use official data and cite it.
rank_places {"indicator":"payroll_job_growth_12_month","level":"region","within":"United States"}
GET https://invokely.ai/api/v1/rank?indicator=payroll_job_growth_12_month&level=region&within=United%20States