Job openings push down jobless rate

POST FALLS - Mother Nature can lend a hand when it comes to the job scene, analysts say.

Kootenai County's unemployment rate in March was 6.3 percent, down two-tenths of a percent from February, according to a report released Friday by the Idaho Department of Labor.

"An early spring really brought out the jobs," said Alivia Metts, a regional economist for the Department of Labor, reflecting on the decrease.

"There have been 2,300 jobs posted through Idaho Department of Labor in the past 30 days. This included everything from seasonal jobs, health care and the jobs from one of our newest employers, Alliance Data."

Alliance Data manages about 130 private label and co-brand credit card programs and will occupy the former Coldwater Creek call center in Coeur d'Alene.

Kootenai's rate has hovered around 6.5 percent for the past eight months.

Metts said she's cautiously optimistic overall about the near future of the job market.

"As for the summer in North Idaho, it always depends on the weather," she said. "However, I think the non-seasonal industries will continue to boast well, including manufacturing and health care."

Idaho's jobless rate in March was 5.2 percent, down a tenth of a percent from February. The number is a 5-and-a-half-year low. The nation's rate was unchanged at 6.7 percent.

Idaho's unemployment rate has been below the national number for more than 12 years.

Coeur d'Alene's rate is 5.8, up a tenth of a percent from February. Post Falls' rate declined to 6.5 from 6.9.

Meanwhile, Benewah County's rate increased to 10.5 percent, compared to 9.1 percent the month before. However, Metts said numbers in counties with smaller populations tend to be more volatile with even small fluctuations in the market.

"There was a drop in number of unemployed, but it was by only 50 or so," Metts said.

The number of job postings in the St. Maries area has jumped, she said.

"There were more than double the number of job openings in the first half of March compared to the same time last year," she said. "Half were in the timber industry. Electricians, kiln operators, truck mechanics and skilled saw filers are among some of the good-paying jobs the industry needs to fill."

On the state level, Idaho employers hired at or faster than their normal pace for March, pushing total employment to an unprecedented 736,000.

March was the seventh straight month total employment has set a record. More than 11,000 more people were at work than in March 2013.

With the latest drop in the jobless rate - the eighth straight monthly decline - unemployment has fallen 1.3 percentage points in a year, while the number of workers off the job dropped from 50,500 in March 2013 to 40,600 last month.

Workers receiving regular state unemployment benefits dropped on average below 13,000 a week last month, 20 percent less than March 2013 to remain at the lowest levels since the expansion of the 1990s.

Jobless benefit payments totaled $14.4 million for the month, 13.4 percent less than a year earlier. Federally-financed extended benefits ended at the close of 2013.