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State unemployment rate falls to
two-year low |
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December 17, 2011 |
Idaho’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate
continued falling in November, dropping another
three-tenths of a percentage point to a two-year
low 8.5 percent – the largest one-month decline
in the rate since 1983.
As they did in October, when the rate dropped
two-tenths of a point, employers across the
state maintained payrolls at higher-than-normal
levels for November. Employers cut just 2,300
jobs from October, less than half the average
reduction during the previous four years. The
average decline during the expansion from 2003
through 2006 was just 900.
Seasonal layoffs in construction, manufacturing,
employment agencies and agriculture and food
processing were augmented by the closure of the
Clearwater Paper mill in Lewiston and some
government layoffs.
In Boundary County, the November unemployment
rate was 12.6 percent, down from October's 13.6
percent and well below last November's 16.2
percent.
But over 3,000 more people were working in
November than October, pushing total employment
above 695,000 for the first time since April
2009. The rise in employment fueled a 1,400
decrease in the number of Idaho workers without
jobs last month. Unemployment fell to 65,000,
the lowest in two years. It was the third month
in a row that employment has risen and
unemployment declined.
Should the numbers hold through the revision
process in January and February, Idaho’s
unemployment rate will have fallen 1.2
percentage points in just eight months. The last
time that kind of rapid decline was recorded was
during the recovery from the double-dip
recession of the early 1980s.
The national jobless rate fell four-tenths of a
point to 8.6 percent to remain above the Idaho
rate for the third straight month. Idaho’s rate
was 9.6 percent in November 2010.
But even with the improved employment picture,
the number of workers without jobs remained
higher than at any other time before the
2007-2009 recession.
Almost 34,000 unemployed workers collected $32.3
million in jobless benefits during November –
$16.4 million in regular benefits and $15.9
million in federal extended benefits. That was
down from 44,000 workers collecting $43.7
million in benefits during November 2010. Over
12,600 workers have exhausted all benefits
without finding jobs.
Employers hired 11 percent more workers in
November than they did during either of the two
previous years although nearly all those workers
filled existing payroll vacancies. November
hiring during the prerecession years averaged 18
percent higher.
The Conference Board, the business think tank,
was still listing in its November report 3.5
officially unemployed workers for every posted
job opening in the state, and that did not
include the several thousand discouraged workers
and tens of thousands of part-time workers who
want and need full-time jobs.
The number of jobs in the Idaho economy was up
in November compared to November 2010 after
falling below the year-earlier total in October.
Retailers brought on the most new workers for
the holiday season in November since the
recession began, setting the state on a course
to finish 2011 with total jobs averaging above
2010. That would be the first time since 2007
that current year jobs exceeded the previous
year. |
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