Unemployment rate increases

SANDPOINT — Bonner County’s streak of four consecutive months of decreasing unemployment was snapped in June, and new figures from the Idaho Department of Labor show the county is once again moving in the wrong direction.

June’s 8.9 percent seasonably-adjusted unemployment rate is up from the 8.8 percent seen in May. It is the first increase since January, when the county’s jobless rate topped out at 9.1 percent.

While Bonner County’s rate has held steady of late, Idaho’s June unemployment rate reached a 25-year high.

Idaho businesses hired fewer people last month than they have during June for the last decade, pushing the forecasted seasonally adjusted unemployment rate up another half percentage point to 8.3 percent.

June’s rate was the highest jobless rate since October 1983, when the state was pulling out of the double-dip recession that ushered in a major economic shift from natural resources to services augmented by some expanded advanced manufacturing — particularly in the high technology sector.

Another 3,400 Idaho workers lost their jobs in June, driving the number of unemployed to over 62,000 for the first time ever. Over 40,000 of those workers shared $59 million in unemployment insurance benefits paid out during the month. A year ago, Idaho’s unemployment rate was 4.7 percent, and the number of workers without jobs was under 36,000.

Idaho’s 50,000 employers reported hiring only 14,500 new workers during the month, the lowest June total since 1998 when that information was first compiled. New hires by employers during the first half of 2009 have averaged only 11,400 a month, nearly 4,000 fewer than in 2008 and 5,000 below the average for the 10 years before that.