California, Hawaii, and Nevada saw the largest jumps in unemployment last year, government data shows

By Ben Winck 

Restaurants are reopening in Michigan. Reuters Nevada, California, and Hawaii had the largest unemployment spikes in 2020, new BLS data shows. Nebraska, Utah, and South Dakota saw their unemployment rates rise the least.

Employment-population ratios sank to all-time lows in 15 states including Illinois and Virginia. Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories . The coronavirus sparked the worst unemployment crisis in nearly a century, but the damage differs significantly state by state, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics .

The nationwide unemployment rate averaged 8.1% throughout 2020 as the pandemic fueled a massive leap in unemployment before giving way to a now-meandering recovery . Yet that overall figure fails to capture massive disparities at the state level. For one, four states saw average annual unemployment rate above 10% last year.

Nevada faced the bleakest downturn, with unemployment averaging 12.8% in 2020. Hawaii and California followed with averages of 11.6% and 10.1%, respectively. New York — the epicenter of the nation’s first COVID-19 outbreak — saw unemployment average 10% in 2020, according to the Wednesday report. Conversely, some states’ labor markets saw negligible upticks in unemployment. Nebraska fared the best, with its own […]

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