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People searching for work, creating their own employment, and stories about those in the Idaho work force.

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June 4, 2013

Idaho’s Underemployment Rate Drops, But It’s Still Well Above Pre-Recession Levels

The number of Idahoans who don’t have enough work declined between 2011 and 2012, but the state’s underemployment rate is still well above pre-recession levels. The Idaho Department of Labor writes in its latest newsletter the 2012 underemployment rate was 16.9 percent. That means nearly 17 percent of Idaho’s workforce had part-time or temporary jobs [...]

May 30, 2013

Is Idaho A Good Place To Be Unemployed? Yes, Says Bloomberg

Wells Fargo representative Josh Plummer talked to dozens of would-be call center workers at a recent job fair in Boise.

Idaho is one of the best states to be without a job. That’s according to government data analyzed by Bloomberg. The online business news site says it considered average unemployment insurance benefits as a percentage of average per capita income, the jobless rate, wealth disparity, and the ratio of households earning at least $200,000 to [...]

May 16, 2013

Federal Sequester Turns Idaho Employment Workers Into Job Seekers

Job seekers line up at a recent Idaho Department of Labor job fair in Boise.

In the next couple of months, many employment office workers in the northwest will join the unemployed. State labor agencies are having to make cutbacks in staffing. It’s due to a combination of the economy getting better and federal budget cuts known as the “sequester” setting in. Staffing at the local employment office usually moves [...]

May 15, 2013

‘Til We Meet Again

Today is my last at StateImpact Idaho. After better than four years spent reporting in the West, next month I’ll make good on a longtime goal. I’ll take a couple of months away from reporting for intensive Spanish study in Central America, something that will benefit my work in the future. There are many things [...]

May 13, 2013

Bottom Rung: Why One Idaho Border Business Chose Washington

Tim Skubitz stands in front of his McDonalds in Newport, Washington. It's right across the street from Oldtown, Idaho.

The border between Washington and Idaho is like a petri dish for what the minimum wage does to the economy. That’s where two extremes meet. Idaho has the federal minimum wage: $7.25 an hour. Meanwhile, Washington’s is nearly $2 more. At $9.19, Washington has the highest minimum wage in the nation. You might expect that [...]

April 23, 2013

Familiar Idaho Careers Fall On 2013 Worst Jobs List

The Wall Street Journal and CareerCast.com came out with the top jobs of 2013 list this week. They ranked 200 jobs based on things like income, stress and hiring outlook. The top job, according to their list, is an actuary. So, what’s an actuary? We didn’t know either. “Actuaries analyze the financial costs of risk [...]

March 28, 2013

Some Idahoans Will See Their Jobless Benefits Cut

Some Idahoans receiving unemployment insurance payments will see their benefits cut by more than 10 percent. The Idaho Department of Labor says the federal budget cuts, called “sequestration,” that went into effect at the beginning of this month triggered a 10.7 percent reduction in those unemployment benefits. Unless Congress acts, the benefit payment cuts could [...]

March 22, 2013

Idaho’s Jobless Rate Ticks Down As The Labor Force Shrinks

The February jobs report from the Idaho Department of Labor follows trends we’ve seen over the last few months. February’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate ticked down one percentage point to 6.2 percent, but that decline is due to a shrinking workforce. The Labor Department says private sector employers hired more people than usual last month, [...]

March 15, 2013

Idaho’s Jobless Rate Stagnant, Workforce Shrinks

Idaho’s January jobless rate didn’t change from December. It remained at 6.3 percent according to the Idaho Department of Labor. December and January’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 6.3 is a four-year low, but Idaho’s workforce isn’t adding jobs as expected. The Department says Idaho’s labor force actually declined in January.

March 6, 2013

For Young People, College Degrees Cut Unemployment

StateImpact has reported on Idaho’s high rate of youth unemployment. We’ve also pointed out that unemployment rates vary according to workers’ educational backgrounds. So a post from Catherine Rampell at The New York Times‘ Economix blog that compares the unemployment rates of high-school-educated twenty-somethings to their college-educated peers caught our eye. Rampell writes: [T]he unemployment [...]

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