State's over-the-year job growth is nation’s fastest again

POST FALLS — Kootenai County's unemployment rate in August was 4.7 percent — down from 5 percent a year ago at that time and up a tenth of a percent from July, the Idaho Department of Labor reported Friday.

"We have been between 4.4 and 4.7 percent for the past six months," said Sam Wolkenhauer, Labor's economist in Post Falls.

"I think the labor market is very stable right now, at least as it relates to local factors. We’ve recovered from the employment effects of the recession, so our growth is much more incremental now."

Looking ahead to the winter months, Wolkenhauer said the rate is typically higher at that time but he doesn't expect much, if any, change.

"I would expect our seasonally adjusted rate to stay somewhere around 4.7 to 4.8 percent," he said.

Both Idaho's rate (3.8 percent) and the nation's number (4.9 percent) remained unchanged from July to August, according to the report

"For the sixth time this year, Idaho was No. 1 in the nation for over-the-year job growth in August," the report states. "An additional 22,000 jobs — a 3.3 percent increase — was driven by across-the-board gains in all industries. Construction grew the fastest with a 9.2 percent increase followed by growth in financial activities, other services and information."

The Coeur d'Alene metro area's rate of 4.7 percent was the highest among the five metro areas in the state.

Month-to-month, growth in the state's seasonally adjusted nonfarm payrolls remained steady between July and August, adding only 100 jobs.

Idaho's labor force increased by almost 700 to 812,400, total employment grew by 500 to 781,400 and the number of unemployed Idahoans increased by only 100 people in August to 31,000.

The state's labor force participation rate remained unchanged at 64.1 percent; nationally the rate was 62.8 percent

According to the Conference Board — a Washington, D.C., think tank — there were nearly 26,000 online postings for Idaho jobs in August. Of those, 5,100 were classified by department analysts as "hard-to-fill" jobs continuously posted for 90 days or more. Based on vacancy rates — a high number of openings compared with total employment for that occupation — health care jobs account for more than 23 percent of all hard-to-fill jobs and include physicians, surgeons, psychiatrists and occupational and physical therapists. By volume, registered nurses and truck drivers maintained the first and second spots for the largest number of hard-to-fill jobs.

Annually, unemployment benefit payments were down from August 2015 by .9 percent — from $1.25 million a year ago to $1.21 million for August 2016. The number of weeks compensated dropped 5.1 percent over the year.