Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Idaho jobless rate drops below 8 percent

Blaine County rate down to 7.4 percent


By EXPRESS STAFF

Idaho's seasonally adjusted March unemployment rate dropped below 8 percent for the first time in two and a half years, as more Idahoans found work than during any other month since October 2006.

According to a news release from the Idaho Department of Labor, the tenth-of-a-point decline in the jobless rate to 7.9 percent marked the eighth straight month that Idaho's unemployment rate has fallen. It is now a full percentage point below the recession-era high in July 2011.

In Blaine County, an estimated 918 of the county's workforce of 12,329 were unemployed in March, a rate of 7.4 percent. That's an improvement from 8 percent in February and 8.7 percent in March 2011.

<

More than 2,500 more workers were on the job in March than in February, as employers across the state hired more than 13,500 people to replace retirees and others, as well as to fill new jobs. It was the first time since 2007 that March hiring has exceeded 13,000, though it was still about 2,000 below the average during the economic expansion from 2003 through 2007.

Those factors ate into the competition for available jobs. The Conference Board, a business think tank in New York, estimated in its March report that the number of unemployed workers vying for each job posting had slipped below 3.5.

Contractors and manufacturers both added more workers between February and March than average over the past five years. But even with persisting gains, construction employment remains at mid-1990s levels while manufacturing payrolls are still at early 1990s levels.

Retailers, transportation companies and employers in the financial sector also maintained payrolls ahead of the five-year average, while the rate of hiring slipped slightly in professional and business services and health care and education—two sectors that have grown steadily through and since the recession.




About Comments

Comments with content that seeks to incite or inflame may be removed.

Comments that are in ALL CAPS may be removed.

Comments that are off-topic or that include profanity or personal attacks, libelous or other inappropriate material may be removed from the site. Entries that are unsigned or contain signatures by someone other than the actual author may be removed. We will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or any other policies governing this site. Use of this system denotes full acceptance of these conditions. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.

The comments below are from the readers of mtexpress.com and in no way represent the views of Express Publishing, Inc.

You may flag individual comments. You may also report an inappropriate or offensive comment by clicking here.

Flagging Comments: Flagging a comment tells a site administrator that a comment is inappropriate. You can find the flag option by pointing the mouse over the comment and clicking the 'Flag' link.

Flagging a comment is only counted once per person, and you won't need to do it multiple times.

Proper Flagging Guidelines: Every site has a different commenting policy - be sure to review the policy for this site before flagging comments. In general these types of comments should be flagged:

  • Spam
  • Ones violating this site's commenting policy
  • Clearly unrelated
  • Personal attacks on others
Comments should not be flagged for:
  • Disagreeing with the content
  • Being in a dispute with the commenter

Popular Comment Threads



 Local Weather 
Search archives:


Copyright © 2024 Express Publishing Inc.   Terms of Use   Privacy Policy
All Rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Express Publishing Inc. is prohibited. 

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.