A strong jobs market and a construction boom have helped South Australia’s economy once again outperform the rest of the nation, the latest report from Commonwealth Bank has found.

The southern state topped the national rankings in the State of the States report for the third straight time in July, with Western Australia close behind in second thanks to strong population growth and housing finance.

Both states are outperforming Australia’s two largest economies on the east coast, with Victoria ranking third and New South Wales languishing in seventh place behind Tasmania.

CommSec senior economist Ryan Felsman said South Australia is being driven by a “solid job market and construction activity”, but that all parts of the nation are experiencing a slowdown.

“Generally speaking, state economies have slowed as consumers respond to higher borrowing costs and price pressures,” he said.

“The future economic path will be dependent on the resiliency of the job market and interest rates.”

NSW is having a particularly tough time with the national pullback in consumer spending amid torrid cost-of-living pressures, ranking seventh in retail spending against decade averages.

The nation’s most populous state also had a relatively weaker jobs market than South Australia, Western Australia and even Queensland, though unemployment was still 18 per cent below decade averages.

Victoria, meanwhile, has comparatively strong retail spending growth and has ranked third on three of CommSec’s eight economic indicators, but its relative unemployment rate is worse.

“Victoria remains in third spot, with results pretty solid across the board,” CommSec analysts said.

By comparison, Western Australia is exhibiting much greater economic strength, scoring first on several of CommSec’s indicators – namely population growth and home lending.

Population out west is now running 3.31 per cent higher than decade averages, compared to 2.7 per cent in Victoria and 2.25 per cent in NSW; South Australia was weaker at 1.65 per cent.

South Australia managed to edge ahead of WA on the back of its jobs market, with the unemployment rate sitting 33.4 per cent lower than the decade average, CommSec said.

The state also topped the list for construction work, with the total real value of residential, commercial and engineering work completed being 15.6 per cent above decade averages.

Interestingly, though, Adelaide scored the highest inflation rate in the nation at 4.3 per cent, indicating that all the activity in the state is having an effect on price growth in its capital.

In comparison, inflation was lower at 3.4 per cent in WA, 3.7 per cent in Victoria and 3.8 per cent in NSW.

Inflation was 3.4 per cent in Queensland, which finished the latest CommSec rankings in fifth place – having scored second place in two individual categories alongside the ACT.

Queensland’s strength has been housing finance and jobs growth (as opposed to the unemployment rate), but economic growth is relatively weaker there than other states.

Queensland does, however, share top rank with WA for the strongest annual economic momentum.

“Western Australia and Queensland both head the leaderboard when annual growth rates are assessed for the eight economic indicators,” CommSec analysts said.