QUESTION: We keep hearing about how we need to recruit workers, and make sure our kids learn skills for all the jobs that need to be filled in Kootenai County. How can we be so desperate for workers when Idaho has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation?

ANSWER: Tough one, especially since we flunked math.

And you’re right about the state’s tiny unemployment number: It was just 3.1 percent in June, according to the Idaho Department of Labor.

The Coeur d’Alene Metro Area’s rate was slightly higher at 3.5 percent, but even that is far below the national average of 4.4 percent.

You’re also correct that the numbers are puzzling.

If such a small group of able-bodied workers (barely more than 25,000 statewide) is unemployed despite actively seeking jobs, it should mean that everyone else is rocking along and earning a living, right?

Yes, but...

The whole equation is actually upside down.

“When you’re talking about unemployment numbers, you’re not talking about jobs, you’re talking about people,” said Gynii Gilliam, president of the Coeur d’Alene Area Economic Development Corporation.

“It’s true that anything under 4 percent technically represents ‘full employment,’ but that’s a bit misleading,” Gilliam said. “We actually don’t have enough people to fill our jobs — and that’s especially true in some of the skilled jobs category.

“That’s why you hear about the push to learn tech skills, because there are jobs waiting for competent people.”

Let’s leave it to Sam Wolkenhauer, regional analyst for the Department of Labor, to explain the numerical logic that seems odd to many of us.

“The low unemployment rate is consistent with a relatively high number of job openings,” Wolkenhauer said. “When the unemployment rate is high, that reflects a large number of job seekers competing for a much smaller number of open positions.

“A low unemployment rate reflects the opposite sort of ratio. That’s why you hear so many comments about the need to get people into the workforce. The state has used up most of its readily available labor.

“We see an abundance of postings for a wide variety of occupations in Kootenai County, from cashiers to truck drivers to registered nurses.

“[The remedy] partially entails education and training, and partially will require wages to rise, since a basic axiom of economics is that a scarcity of a resource — in this case, labor — is correlated with upward pressure on the price of that resource; in other words, wages.”

Aha!

So the answer to our puzzle, according to these experts, seems to be that just because almost everyone is working doesn’t mean that there aren’t plenty of excellent jobs still available.

“That’s it, exactly,” said Amber Conklin, business relations and communications officer for the Coeur d’Alene EDC. “Idaho is in a boom. We’re an in-migration state — and the same is true for the Kootenai County area.

“We need more qualified workers to keep the pipeline filled because businesses are moving here and they need help.”

So there’s your answer.

We’ve let some smart people explain why apparently conflicting numbers DO match.

Hey, we got it.

Sort of.

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Readers are encouraged to send questions on any local subject to Steve Cameron at scameron@cdapress.com. We’ll answer as many as we can in this “I Wonder” feature each Tuesday.