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December jobless rates drop in 27 of
Idaho’s 44 counties |
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January 21, 2012 |
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate
dropped from November to December in 27 of
Idaho’s 44 counties, following the decline in
the statewide rate to 8.4 percent.
The number of counties with double-digit rates
fell to 13 from 14 in November and 17 a year
earlier while six counties had jobless rates of
6 percent or less, up from five in November and
only two in December 2010.
Caribou County, where there were recent mining
layoffs, was the only county with a higher rate
at 7.6 percent this past December than in
December 2010, when the rate was 6.4 percent.
Kootenai County, the one metropolitan area in
the state that had posted double-digit
unemployment rates for 19 straight months,
dropped half a percentage point in December to
9.8 percent.
Adams County continued to have the highest rate
at 17 percent in December while Franklin County
again had the lowest at 5 percent.
Fifteen mostly rural counties had average 2011
unemployment rates in double-digits, led by
Adams at 16.6 percent. But that compared to 18
counties in double-digits in 2010.
In Boundary County, one of the 15, the
preliminary unemployment rate for December was
11.7 percent, compared to 12.9 percent in
November. The preliminary average for the county
for 2011 is 14-percent, compared to 15.6 percent
in 2010, but up from the 12-percent posted in
2009.
Owyhee County had the lowest average rate at 5.3
percent, up a tenth of its 2010
lowest-in-the-state rate. |
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