Idaho's jobless rate, labor force down
September 21, 2012
Fewer people seeking available jobs was enough to nudge Idaho’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate down a tenth of a percentage point to 7.4 percent in August.

In Boundary County, unemployment remains at more than 10-percent, but the 10.6-percent rate is considerably improved from a year ago, when unemployment stood at 14.1-percent, and slightly better than July's rate of 10.9-percent. Much of the improve here is the result of many in our local workforce going out-of-state, mostly to the North Dakota oil fields, to find work.

The loss of 2,600 workers from the state’s labor force – the first July-August decline since 1980 - offset an increase in hiring by Idaho employers at a rate just above their recession-era average,

August’s jobless rate was the lowest in over three years, but it was also the third straight month Idaho’s labor force has contracted. The loss of more than 5,500 from the workforce through the summer – the largest three-month exodus of workers on record – left the labor force at its lowest level since January.

Nearly 1,100 fewer people were working in August than July, the second straight month employment has dropped after rising steadily for the previous year, and almost 1,600 more workers left the ranks of the jobless, dropping the number of officially unemployed Idaho workers to just over 57,000.

Although the national unemployment rate dropped two-tenths of a point to 8.1 percent, Idaho’s one-tenth reduction keeps the state rate below the national rate for 11 years.

Nonfarm jobs, which account for over 90 percent of Idaho’s employment, continued to run 1.1 percent ahead of a year earlier and were up a third of a percentage point from July to August, reflecting the persisting, albeit slow, recovery from the recession. While the state’s service sector is approaching pre-recession job levels, the production side of Idaho’s economy remains at 1993 levels. More than 1,000 manufacturing workers were idled in primarily seasonal food processing layoffs during the month.

Still, there were 17,000 more people working in Idaho in August than a year earlier and 11,000 fewer unemployed. In the past 13 months, the jobless rate has dropped from a recession high of 8.9 percent to 7.4 percent. Only five other states – Michigan, Ohio, Florida, Nevada and Mississippi – have posted greater declines.

The state’s declining labor force has played a role in driving Idaho’s jobless rate lower in recent months, but employers may be picking up their hiring. Businesses report hiring 18,400 workers in August - most to replace workers who retired, were fired, found other jobs or left for some other reason - matching the average August new hires during the economic expansion from 2003 through 2007.

For the second month in a row, the Conference Board, a Washington, D.C. business think tank, estimated fewer than five unemployed workers for every two job openings posted in Idaho, the lowest ratio since late 2008. At the peak of the recession in late 2009, there were nine unemployed workers for every two job openings posted in the state.

Unemployment insurance benefit payments totaled just under $16.5 million in August, and the number of weekly regular benefit payments dropped below 10,000 for the first time since November 2007. About 9,800 workers a week received regular benefits totaling $9.2 million while another 7,600 shared $7.3 million in federal extended benefits, which expire at the end of the year. The August benefit payout was 35 percent less than in July 2011, due in part to the termination of the final phase of the federal- state extended benefit program. More than $1.6 million was paid under that program in August 2011 and less than $400,000 this past August.

Since the recession began and during its aftermath, more than 15,000 workers have exhausted all benefits without finding jobs, and hundreds more have stopped receiving extended benefits because the last two phases were terminated as the unemployment rate fell.

Only nine rural counties recorded double-digit unemployment rates in August, down from 10 in July and 15 in August 2011. The highest rate was 17.6 percent in resource-dependent Adams County, up a half point from July but three and a half points lower than in August 2011.

Twenty-eight of Idaho’s 44 counties and three of the five metropolitan areas posted lower jobless rates in August than in July, and every county but Lewis and Owyhee had lower rates than a year ago. Oneida County had the lowest rate in August at 4.4 percent, and eight counties had rates under six percent, down from nine in July. A year earlier, only four counties had rates below six percent.