Economic outlook for Payette County begins to dim
By Jeff Ward
Argus Observer
Thursday, February 5, 2009 10:49 AM PST
Payette — The economic outlook in Payette County is at a tipping point.
“It’s tough,” Jim Smith, manager of the local Idaho Department of Labor, said. “I don’t have the crystal ball. There are so many factors involved that come into play. If the president’s stimulus package does what he hopes it will do, then they’re looking for turn arounds. The promise of lower mortgage rates, with lower interest rates, I mean, who is it going to impact? There are so many mitigating factors. This office has never been busier. Every office in the state is the same way. They have never been busier.”
Employers in the county are also feeling the economic pinch. Laying off employees means revenue is not coming in like it used to because business is down.
“We are just not getting job orders,” Smith said. “Our principal employers, and I am not permitted to tell you which those are, have had large layoffs, and that affects other businesses. If you lose your job at company X then that means your not spending any money at business Y and so on. This economy has had a trickle-down effect on every employee and business.”
December’s figures show Payette County at an unemployment rate of 9.9 percent. That number could easily go to double digits for January, Smith said. The new numbers for unemployment come out Friday.
“I will be surprised if we are not in double digits.” Smith said.
Smith said there is a good side to all of this.
“We see a leveling off,” he said. “It’s not getting worse, and it’s not getting better. I’m hoping that we are plateauing. That’s the sense I get. There are businesses that seem to be doing all right. I would like to hope that we are demonstrating that Payette County can carry retail — that we don’t have to be sales tax impacted.”
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Smith pointed out that in Payette County one in 10 workers is out of work. That means that nine of those 10 are still employed, he said.
Smith recently held a meeting with all of the counties elected officials, where they tried to analyze what they wanted to do for economic development for Payette County. Smith said once they got to talking they discovered that this economic situation was similar to the one back in the 1980s.
“Back then we had a similar economy and that’s when Coca-Cola came in, Dickinson’s, Dominican. There were a number of businesses that were identified that came into the county at the time because fiscally and economically it made sense for them to do it,” Smith said. “Properties were reasonably priced and you had a pool of labor that was waiting for the opportunity. This is a similar situation. This is our opportunity to really get out and draw outside dollars into Payette County.”
Smith said anyone looking for work right now might not like what’s out there, but if they stick with it, it will turn around.
“Sometimes you just have to get your foot in the door,” he said. “Then show your employer what your value is and make yourself indispensable to that employer. There’s a lot of good people out on the street right now.”
Smith said the employment office has many tools to help those looking for work to find it.
“We have a job club that we do every Wednesday from 10 a.m. until 11 a.m. and it’s driven by the job seekers,” Smith said. “We’re just facilitators. We want them to come and tell us what they need, how can we help. We’ll identify if there is a shortcoming in their resume, or the way they dress for an interview is inappropriate. They will talk about jobs that they have heard of on the street that we don’t get, that they have heard of and while it may not the right job for one it may be perfect for another. So they are talking to each other and helping each other out in these workshops.”
Smith said unemployment claims are hitting record highs in the county, nearly doubling what they were at the same time just 10 years ago.
“It’s grim from the perspective that there’s only so much money here, but we haven’t had to borrow money from the federal government like many states have had to,” he said. “A lot of states are bankrupt. Just look at California. Because we have operated so conservatively in the past is why we are in a little better shape than other states.”
Smith said emotions are running high with people who are out of work.
“I have real concerns for a lot of the folks that are coming in,” he said. “We are going into the final tier of unemployment benefits for some of the people that are coming in. Where they have to take any job that’s offered to them or they lose their benefits. It doesn’t matter if it’s minimum wage or not if you turn down the job you lose your benefits. That’s when it gets tough, where emotions run really high and I’m nervous about us getting to that point. Because when we get to that point the pot’s dry. We are seeing a lot of tears. We see a lot of people who have been at their jobs for 10 or 20 years suddenly find themselves unemployed. We are so defined by our jobs and our careers and when you lose that you go through the grief cycle. The anger, the denial, the negotiation and then finally the acceptance. Some people can get through it pretty quickly — others it takes weeks.”
Smith said his office is here to help.
“The thing for us is to help those people out by offering our workshops and help fine tuning the résumé’s. The real smart job seeker is going to take full advantage of the resources we have here.”
