Texas and the Carolinas Lead a Concentrated Sun Belt Jobs Surge

A surprisingly large share of America’s strongest job growth is coming from a small group of Sun Belt states.

Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana and New Mexico added a combined 310,200 nonfarm payroll jobs from August 2025 to August 2026. Together, they accounted for nearly 59% of all job gains among the eight states where the increase was large enough to be statistically significant.

The concentration stands out in the latest state employment report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, released Friday.

Texas was the heavyweight. The state added 159,400 jobs over 12 months, more than any state except California when measured against the eight states with statistically significant gains. Texas payroll employment reached nearly 14.47 million in August.

North Carolina added another 65,600 jobs, while South Carolina gained 38,600. Louisiana added 32,100 and New Mexico 14,500.

Louisiana, New Mexico and South Carolina each expanded payroll employment by 1.6% over the year, the fastest statistically significant rates in the country. North Carolina grew 1.3%, while Texas increased 1.1%.

California, Minnesota and Missouri were the only states outside that Sun Belt group with statistically significant year-over-year job growth.

The rest of the country was far quieter. Payroll employment was essentially unchanged in 42 states over the year. Washington, D.C., was the only jurisdiction with a statistically significant decline, losing 27,000 jobs.

That makes the latest employment picture less of a nationwide hiring boom than a geographically concentrated expansion.

South Carolina and New Mexico are still adding jobs now

The newest monthly figures narrow the field even further. Only four states posted statistically significant payroll gains from July to August: California, Wisconsin, South Carolina and New Mexico.

South Carolina added 10,800 jobs in one month, while New Mexico added 5,500. California gained 39,400 and Wisconsin 11,800.

South Carolina’s labor market also expanded beyond the payroll count. The number of people working reached nearly 2.57 million in August, while the state labor force climbed to a record 2.68 million. Its unemployment rate fell to 4.1%, down from 4.6% a year earlier. South Carolina’s August employment update showed employment continuing to rise alongside the larger labor force.

New Mexico posted the strongest statistically significant monthly percentage increase at 0.6%. Its year-over-year payroll growth also reached 1.6%, although its unemployment rate rose from 4.1% to 4.7% over the same 12 months.

That combination is a reminder that job creation and unemployment do not always move together. A state can add payroll positions while also adding people to its labor force or experiencing other changes in the number of residents looking for work.

North Carolina shows another side of the jobs story

North Carolina offers an especially useful example of why headline job totals do not tell the whole story.

The state added 65,600 payroll jobs over the past year, with 61,000 of those in the private sector. Professional and business services gained 23,300 jobs, construction added 17,500 and leisure and hospitality grew by 16,900. Education and health services added 11,200.

Manufacturing moved in the opposite direction, losing 8,900 jobs.

At the same time, North Carolina’s household employment measure fell by 47,152 people over the year, even as the unemployment rate declined to 3.5%.

Payroll employment and household employment come from different federal surveys and measure different things. The payroll survey counts jobs at employers; the household survey measures whether residents are employed or looking for work.

North Carolina has already been confronting a shrinking labor force as population growth slows and participation declines. State economists have pointed to an aging population and lower participation among younger residents as important parts of that longer-term change. The North Carolina Department of Commerce examined that shrinking labor-force problem this summer.

The state’s fresh August numbers therefore carry two messages at once: employers are supporting considerably more payroll jobs than a year ago, but the pool of North Carolinians participating in the labor market is not expanding alongside them. North Carolina’s August employment report shows most of the annual payroll gain coming from private employers.

The Sun Belt advantage is not universal

It would be easy to read the figures as another confirmation that the entire Sun Belt is booming. The data are more selective than that.

Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Arizona and Nevada were not among the eight states with statistically significant year-over-year payroll gains in the August report. That does not mean those states lost jobs. It means their estimated changes were not large enough, relative to normal statistical uncertainty, for the Bureau of Labor Statistics to classify them as significant.

Even among the five Sun Belt leaders, conditions differ sharply.

North Carolina has a low 3.5% unemployment rate but a shrinking labor force. South Carolina is adding both workers and payroll jobs. Texas continues to generate the largest number of new positions in the group, yet its unemployment rate rose from 4.2% to 4.4% over the year. New Mexico has one of the fastest payroll growth rates while unemployment has also increased. Louisiana combines 1.6% payroll growth with a 4.2% unemployment rate.

The common thread is not that every Sun Belt economy is moving in the same direction. It is that when clear job growth is appearing in the latest state data, much of it is appearing in this part of the country.

Five Sun Belt states accounted for nearly three out of every five jobs added among states with statistically significant growth over the past year. Whether that concentration continues will depend not only on companies adding positions, but on whether fast-growing states can supply enough workers, housing, infrastructure and skills to fill them.