FRED has data that allow us to track and compare changes in employment across states and metro areas.

Our first FRED map, above, shows the change in nonfarm employment in each state during the fourth quarter of 2025. The Bureau of Labor Statistics released these data a little later than usual (on January 28) due to the government shutdown last fall.

At the state level

• North Carolina led all states, adding 22,700 jobs in the fourth quarter.
• The largest declines were in Virginia, which lost 17,400 jobs, and Washington, DC, which lost 18,400.
• Missouri led the Eighth Federal Reserve District states with 10,600 jobs added, which was the fifth largest gain among all US states; Indiana was last in the Eighth District, losing 17,000 jobs.

If you sum up the individual states, you’ll see a net gain of 50,700 jobs. This is different from the reported number for the nation, which shed 51,000 at the end of the fourth quarter. This difference exists because the state level has different sampling and tends to have a larger margin of error than the national number.

Our second FRED map, above, shows employment changes at the metro level.

• The New York-Newark-Jersey City MSA led the nation with 31,200 jobs added in the fourth quarter.
• The Washington-Arlington-Alexandria MSA had the largest decline, losing 33,500 jobs.
• The St. Louis MSA gained 7,400 jobs.

These numbers for MSAs tend to vary greatly from quarter to quarter, with even greater sampling errors than the errors at the state and national levels. So, be careful not to read too much into the data.

NOTE: These data are subject to future revision by the source, with an annual revision the following March. Our ALFRED database records vintages of the data, so users can view the data as they appeared at various points in history: These links provide employment data for Missouri and St. Louis as of January 28, 2026.

How these maps were created: Search FRED for “total nonfarm employees in Missouri” (or any other state). Click “View Map” and then “Edit Map.” Change the units to “Change, Thousands of Persons” and the frequency to quarterly with aggregation method “End of Period.” Under “Format,” select “User Defined Method” for how to group the data: Switch the number of color groups to 3 and change the colors to red for states that shed jobs (or a value less than or equal to 0), light green for states with modest job growth (or less than 10), and dark green for states with strong growth (or a value large enough to incorporate the rest of the states). For the second map, repeat the process with an MSA—St. Louis, for example.

Suggested by John Fuller and Charles Gascon.