State unemployment rate falls to two-year low

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.