Idaho’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate plunged another three-tenths of a percentage point to 7.1 percent in September. While it was the lowest rate since May 2009, it came with a fourth straight month of a shrinking labor force and the first August-September labor force decline since the 1986 recession.

Employers across the state expanded September payrolls from August at a higher rate than the past five years and at a slightly faster pace than they did during the expansion from 2003 through 2007.

Another 1,200 workers were on the job in September, pushing total employment to 720,600 – its highest level in four years – and breaking a two-month employment slide. Total nonfarm jobs were 1.2 percent above September 2011, marking the fifth straight month that jobs have totaled at least a percentage point higher than a year earlier.

Unemployment benefit payments dropped 36 percent in September from September 2011, and the number of claimants averaged 15,000 during the month, down 37 percent from nearly 24,000 a year ago. Benefits for more than a third of those claimants expire at the end of the year.

The combination was a sign of slow but sustainable growth that could persist even in the face of economic setbacks.

The drop in Idaho’s jobless rate matched the three-tenths of a point decline in the national rate to 7.8 percent and marked 11 full years that the state rate has been lower than the national rate. Total unemployment in Idaho fell 1,800 to just over 55,000, the lowest number since May 2009.  In the last 14 months, Idaho’s unemployment rate has dropped from 8.9 percent to 7.1 percent. The last time there was such a rapid decline was in 1988 during the recovery from the three recessions that marked the early and mid-1980s.

Total employment was over 16,000 higher than a year ago, and there were 12,000 fewer unemployed.

But the loss of another 500 people from the labor force continued a contraction unmatched during Idaho’s summer peak employment season. Over 6,000 workers have left the labor force since May despite improved hiring prospects. The worst labor force exodus occurred between October 2008 and May 2009 when 9,100 people dropped out. The only other greater labor force contraction was 8,700 from December 1979 through August 1980.

Except for construction and information, all major industrial sectors saw larger payrolls this fall than a year ago. But nonfarm jobs overall remained below the 2005 levels, and construction and manufacturing job totals matched the early 1990s. Total jobs are not expected to recover to pre-recession levels until 2015.

While employers reported hiring 17,000 workers during September – more than two-thirds to fill existing job vacancies – it was still short of their hiring pace a year earlier and about 4,000 below the average September hiring prior to the recession.

The Conference Board, a Washington, D.C., business think tank, estimated in its September report that fewer than five workers were available for every two Idaho job postings, half the competition for jobs that existed at the peak of the recession. 

Only nine rural counties recorded double-digit unemployment rates in September, unchanged from August but barely half of the 16 recorded in September 2011. The highest rate was 18 percent in resource-dependent Adams County, up a half point from August but nearly three and a half points lower than in September 2011.

Twenty-nine of Idaho’s 44 counties and all five metropolitan areas posted lower jobless rates in September than in August, and every county but Camas had a lower rate than a year ago. Franklin County had the lowest rate in September at 4.1 percent, and a dozen counties had rates under 6 percent, up from 10 in August. A year earlier, only four counties had rates below 6 percent.   

State and county data is available on the Idaho Department of Labor’s
website in Excel format (http://labor.idaho.gov/lmi/laborforce.xls and http://labor.idaho.gov/lmi/histrates.xls or in PDF format (http://labor.idaho.gov/lmi/laborforce.pdf and http://labor.idaho.gov/lmi/histrates.pdf.