Most states had March employment increase

Payroll employment rose in roughly three-quarters of states in March, the Labor Department reported Tuesday.

In all, 38 states saw employment hikes last month, when the economy added 216,000 jobs and the unemployment rate fell to 8.8 percent. 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics also announced that Texas, Missouri, Florida, North Carolina and Oklahoma had the greatest March increases in employment. California, Connecticut, Louisiana, Maryland and Maine had the biggest drops last month.

Broadly speaking, the West still has the highest unemployment rate — 10.7 percent, with Nevada (13.2 percent) and California (12 percent) continuing to have the highest rates in the country. Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Oregon and Rhode Island also had unemployment rates of at least 10 percent.

For their part, the other three regions — the Midwest, the Northeast and the South — had unemployment rates of 9 percent or lower; all showed significant unemployment rate drops when compared to March 2010. 

In that year, Michigan, Illinois and Indiana all showed unemployment rate drops of at least 2 percent, with Michigan’s falling from 13.3 percent to 10.3 percent.

Meanwhile, North Dakota, Nebraska and South Dakota continued to have the lowest unemployment rates in the country.