Idaho's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for March continued rising from a year-opening 55-month low as expanding job opportunities failed to keep pace with new entrants into the labor force.
The Department of Employment forecast the March jobless rate at 5.4 percent, up another two-tenths of a point from the February rate.Analysts said expanded employment in agriculture, construction, concrete products and retail trade was tempered by layoffs in the timber, food processing, trucking and recreation sectors.
But, they added, "The outlook for continued growth in Idaho remains strong," analysts said.
Idaho's increased unemployment rate contrasted with the unchanged national rate at 6.5 percent, although it remained more than a full percentage point lower. But the state economy generated only half the new jobs in March as it did in February while the national economy saw more people added to payrolls last month than in over six years.
State analysts put the number of Idahoans at work last month at a seasonally adjusted - and still inexplicably high - 564,300 with the number of people looking for jobs pushing within just a few thousand of 600,000. But the figures are suspect because of significant changes in the way the government is now calculating the jobless rate.
Officials expect it will be several months before all the figures are reconciled.
The state finished 1993 with an average jobless rate of 6.2 percent. Analysts predicted in January that the average rate would drop another notch in 1994 to 6.1 percent as unemployment remains relatively static because job production cannot keep pace with the labor force of a state whose strong economy continues to attract new workers.
Regionally, the unemployment rates for March, February and March 1993 were:
- Panhandle, 7.7 percent, 7.2 percent, 9 percent.
- Lewiston area, 3.3 percent, 3.4 percent, 4.5 percent.
- Canyon-Ada counties, 3.9 percent, 4 percent, 5.4 percent.
- Magic Valley, 4.6 percent, 4.6 percent, 6.7 percent.
- Pocatello area, 6.1 percent, 5.8 percent, 6.6 percent.
- Idaho Falls area, 5.1 percent, 4.9 percent, 5.7 percent.