{"id":11035,"date":"2012-09-21T08:32:51","date_gmt":"2012-09-21T14:32:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/?p=11035"},"modified":"2012-09-21T12:35:09","modified_gmt":"2012-09-21T18:35:09","slug":"idahos-latest-good-news-bad-news-unemployment-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/2012\/09\/21\/idahos-latest-good-news-bad-news-unemployment-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Idaho&#8217;s Latest Good News-Bad News Unemployment Report"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_8191\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"Workers lined up at a job fair in June.\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/files\/2012\/06\/6-13-Unemployment-Line.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-8191\" title=\"6-13 Unemployment\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/files\/2012\/06\/6-13-Unemployment-Line-300x202.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"202\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/files\/2012\/06\/6-13-Unemployment-Line-300x202.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/files\/2012\/06\/6-13-Unemployment-Line.jpg 594w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">John Moore \/ Getty Images<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Workers lined up at a job fair in June.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>At first glance, it&#8217;s good news.\u00a0 Idaho&#8217;s unemployment rate ticked down yet another tenth of a percentage point in August, falling to a three-year low of 7.4 percent.\u00a0 That&#8217;s better than the national rate of 8.1.<\/p>\n<p>But, like the nation as a whole, Idaho is now facing an unhappy trend: its labor force is also shrinking.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/labor.idaho.gov\/news\/NewsReleases\/tabid\/1953\/ctl\/PressRelease\/mid\/3872\/itemid\/2468\/Default.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">According to the state Department of Labor<\/a>, there were 2,600 fewer people in the Idaho labor force in August as compared to July.\u00a0 In other words, the unemployment rate isn&#8217;t falling because that many more people have jobs.\u00a0 It&#8217;s falling because people have given up looking.\u00a0 <!--more--><\/p>\n<div class=\"related-content alignleft\"><h4 class=\"related-header\">Related<\/h4><div class=\"links\"><h5>Posts<\/h5><ul><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/2012\/09\/20\/idaho-incomes-fall-for-third-year-in-a-row\/\">Idaho Incomes Fall For Third Year In A\u00a0Row<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/2012\/09\/18\/boise-economy-shows-relative-strength-in-shaky-recovery\/\">Boise Economy Shows Relative Strength In Shaky Recovery<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/2012\/08\/17\/idahos-jobless-rate-drops-to-lowest-level-in-three-years\/\">Idaho\u2019s Jobless Rate Drops To Lowest Level In Three\u00a0Years<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><div class=\"topics\"><h5>Topics<\/h5><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/files\/2011\/09\/9-29-Unemployment-Benefits-Post-60x60.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/topic\/unemployment\/\">Tracking Idaho\u2019s Unemployment Rate<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<p>After three straight months during which Idahoans exited the labor force &#8212; for a total decline of 5,500 workers &#8212; the number of people who have jobs or are looking for work in the state stands at its lowest level since January.<\/p>\n<p>There is an upside to the August figures.\u00a0 If you widen the lens, and consider how the state&#8217;s unemployment picture has changed since this time a year ago, there&#8217;s improvement.\u00a0 The Department of Labor <a href=\"http:\/\/labor.idaho.gov\/news\/NewsReleases\/tabid\/1953\/ctl\/PressRelease\/mid\/3872\/itemid\/2468\/Default.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">reports<\/a> that there were 17,000 more people working in the state this August as compared to last.<\/p>\n<p>Also, the ratio of people looking for work to the number of jobs available is also coming down.\u00a0 There are five people looking for every two available positions, says the Conference Board.\u00a0 That&#8217;s the most favorable ratio since 2008.<\/p>\n<p>Nine counties still posted double-digit unemployment rates last month, compared to 15 counties a year ago.\u00a0 Still topping that list is hard-hit Adams County, with an unemployment rate of 17.6 percent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At first glance, it&#8217;s good news.\u00a0 Idaho&#8217;s unemployment rate ticked down yet another tenth of a percentage point in August, falling to a three-year low of 7.4 percent.\u00a0 That&#8217;s better than the national rate of 8.1. But, like the nation as a whole, Idaho is now facing an unhappy trend: its labor force is also [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":8191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[106,233,46,74],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11035"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11035"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11059,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11035\/revisions\/11059"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}