Jobless rate sinks to a 12-year low in Malheur County
By Larry Meyer
Argus Observer
Thursday, November 15, 2007 11:05 AM PST
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| Sam Sayer (left) and Andy Bondiman are two employees at Gandolfo’s New York Delicatessen, situated along Southeast Second Street, near Idaho Avenue, Ontario. New restaurants are helping raise employment numbers in Malheur County. |
ONTARIO — The numbers are different, but the latest unemployment statistics from Payette and Malheur counties paint a positive picture, though the onset of winter has triggered seasonal layoffs that may jar the overall promising area job projection.
In both counties, the employment picture improved during a stretch of several months from last year.
“There is good news,” Eastern Oregon Regional Economist Jason Yohannan said.
Malheur County experienced an estimated jobless rate of 4.1 percent in September, down slightly from a 4.8 percent mark in August, according to Yohannan’s latest labor trends report.
“This is Malheur County’s lowest unemployment rate in nearly 12 years,” he said.
Only two other Oregon counties had lower jobless rates in September — Hood River and Benton — and it is also the first time in nearly 12 years where Malheur County’s unemployment rate was lower than the corresponding national average.
While substantial employment gains are expected in Malheur County during September, Yohannan said there were 80 more jobs than usual. A couple of restaurants opened, he said, and the health care field has continued to see slow but steady growth.
“The county’s manufacturing sector has bounded back from significant (job losses),” Yohannan said.
Yohannan said the statistics show a positive tilt.
“There are good things happening,” he said. “It was about 12 months ago the trends started turning around.”
One key item regarding unemployment trends pivots around the fact the unemployment rate is often ahead of employment numbers, which in turn may reflect the number of people who stopped looking for work, Yohannan said.
“This is the first month (in a long time) that the unemployment figures and employment figures are both telling us positive things,” he said.
At the Oregon Employment Department, field office manager Nancy Alvarado said there are still people looking for jobs.
“Our traffic patterns still look pretty seasonal,” Alvarado said.
Alvarado said her office is trying to fill a lot of jobs, many of them requiring a certificate or a degree.
The health care field is one area where there is always a need for workers, Alvarado said. For those who are interested but need training there are scholarships that can help put someone through school.
For September, the comparable unemployment figure for Payette County stood at 2.3 percent, but Jim Smith, manager in the Payette office of the Idaho Department of Labor, said separating out Payette County numbers from Malheur County’s numbers is not easy.
Of those job searchers registered with his office, 25 are from Oregon, he said.
“We don’t get credit for nonresidents,” he said.
Smith said he expects to see unemployment figures starting to climb.
“We are getting ag layoffs,” he said, adding that situation is typical after the first frost.
There also may be an increase in unemployment with the downturn in the housing market and housing construction, Smith said.
“We still have lots of work,” he said.
Training programs for people who need to improve skills are still available, he said.
“We still need people for those programs,” he said.
John Panten, southwest Idaho economist, said the strong employment numbers are the result of spillover from the upper Treasure Valley, prompted by companies that arrived locally to find workers and/or lower costs, and there are things happening across the area that benefit Payette, Malheur and Washington counties.
Mirage Trailers, near Weiser, is one example, Panten said.
“The biodiesel plant has been doing pretty well,” Panten said. “Malheur County has quite a few things.”
Still some firms, such as metal fabricators, are having difficulty finding a qualified workforce, Panten said.
“We’re a blue collar economy with a white collar workforce,” he said.
While housing construction may be in decline, he said commercial construction is picking up the slack.
