BOISE, Idaho (News Release) – Idaho’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for June was 3.7 percent – the third consecutive month the rate has remained unchanged.
Month to month, a slight uptick of only two-tenths of a percent left Idaho’s seasonally-adjusted nonfarm payrolls unchanged.

Gains in trade, transportation and utilities, professional and business services, education and health services, and government were offset by weaker-than-expected performance in mining and logging, construction, information, financial activities, leisure and hospitality and other services.

Over the year, Idaho’s seasonally-adjusted non-farm employment grew 2.8 percent. Four of Idaho's 10 industry sectors experienced increases of 3 percent or higher with job growth in construction leading the way at 6 percent. Natural resources was the only industry to see a decrease in jobs over the year, down 7.7 percent.

Total employment for Idaho increased by 550 workers to 779,800 as the number of unemployed Idahoans increased by 500 people to 30,400. Idaho’s seasonally adjusted labor force increased by 1,050 to 810,100.

Idaho’s labor force participation rate – the percentage of people 16 years and older with jobs or looking for work remained unchanged from May at 64.1 percent.

Nationally, unemployment rose slightly to 4.9 percent
The Conference Board, a Washington, D.C. think tank, reports 25,800 online postings for Idaho jobs in June. Of those listings, 4,550 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 the total employment for that occupation – health care jobs account for more than 20 percent of all hard-to-fill jobs and include physicians, surgeons, psychiatrists and occupational and physical therapists.

By volume, truck drivers and registered nurses hold the first and second spots for the largest number of hard-to-fill jobs.

Annually, unemployment benefit payments were down from June 2015 by 2 percent - from $1.47 million a year ago to $1.46 million for June 2016. The number of weeks compensated dropped 4.7 percent over the year.

Twenty-three of Idaho’s 44 counties experienced unemployment rates above the state rate. Madison County had the lowest rate in the state at 2.8 percent while Lewis County had the highest rate at 7.6 percent.

The Idaho Falls metropolitan statistical area (MSA) reported the lowest unemployment rate of all MSAs at 3.3 percent, down from 3.5 percent one year earlier. The Coeur d’Alene MSA experienced the highest unemployment rate among the MSAs at 4.7 percent, down from 4.9 percent the previous June.

Details on Idaho’s unemployment picture can be found at lmi.Idaho.gov.

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