03/12/10

The unemployment rate in the state of Idaho seems to be slowing down slightly; between January and February, the statewide rate climbed two-tenths of a percent to 9.5 percent unemployment. In the last year, the eight counties of Magic Valley have stayed fairly level, once you average them all out.

Idaho Department of Labor Regional Manager Brent Tolman says “Mini-Cassia unemployment rate is 6.8 percent, but year over year increase has seen about 1100 people employed, compared to the previous year.”

Unemployment in the Twin Falls and Jerome area is at 8.6 percent, while a lack of tourism drove the jobless rate in the Wood River Valley up to just under ten percent.

Tolman says only ten of the 44 Idaho counties have seen improvements since last year, with three of those counties here in Magic Valley, which include Minidoka and Gooding counties.

Tolman says, “Some of the sectors that are positive, food manufacturing's up 6.9 percent, and transportation warehousing logistics is up 11 percent from a year ago.”

Tolman says employment in the mining, logging, and construction industries is down 13 and a half percent from last year.

Nationwide, three million people lost their jobs last year, with not quite 15 thousand of those in Idaho. Tolman says the number of job losses seem to be leveling off right now.

He says, “There was a lot of discussion about we think we've hit bottom, but we're kind of bouncing along at that point for right now. We don't see a real strong upsurge, but hopefully that'll be coming, 4 or 5 months down the road, we'll start seeing some more growth.”