Jobless rate increases for third straight month
Total employment in Idaho slipped further in October, pushing the forecasted seasonally adjusted unemployment rate up another notch to 9.1 percent.
It was the third straight monthly increase in the rate, which peaked in February at a near-record 9.5 percent.
Employers remained cautious about the economy’s future. While there were relatively few layoffs during October, employers hired fewer new workers than during any other October since complete record keeping began in 1998.
Private businesses shed 5,300 jobs from September to October with only transportation and education escaping the seasonal decline. That loss of jobs, smaller than employers have normally experienced over the past five years, was partially offset by increased employment at all levels of public education as the fall term got under way.
The October job listing report from the Conference Board, a Washington, D.C.-based business think tank, found Idaho had one job listed for every three unemployed workers, up slightly from September’s report but a marked improvement from July, which showed one job for every four unemployed.
Overall, nonfarm jobs fell 3,100 from September to 608,200, about 1 percent below the October 2009. Current-year job totals have ranged between 0.6 percent and 1.2 percent below the previous year since March.
Nationally, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate remained unchanged, holding at 9.6 percent for the third month in a row. While Idaho’s rate has been rising into the fall, October marked one month and nine years that the Idaho rate has been lower than the nation’s. Idaho’s October unemployment rate for 2009 was 8.8 percent, making October 2010 the 38th month that the current rate exceeded year-earlier levels.
An increase in Idaho’s unemployment rate and a decline in employment have been typical from September to October since the economy began slowing in 2007, but the loss of employment this October at 600 was the smallest since the recession began in December 2007.
Total employment fell for the fifth straight month to 687,000, 3,000 more than a year earlier but down from the peak of over 729,000 in April and May 2007. The number of workers without jobs rose 1,300 to 69,200, about 2,800 more than in October 2009 but 2,300 short of the record set in February.
An average of 31,400 idled workers received unemployment insurance benefits each week in October, down from over 37,300 in October 2009. Benefit payments from both the state trust fund and the federal government totaled $34.1 million compared to $42.8 million a year earlier. Benefit payments for the first 10 months of the year totaled $533.5 million, just short of the $535.8 million paid through October 2009.