Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Idaho's unemployment rate hits 3%

It's getting nuts. Even basic manufacturing jobs are starting at $24 an hour. Housing has jumped 30% in the last 12 months around here, after a 20% jump the year before.

https://www.eastidahonews.com/2021/06/idaho-unemployment-rate-drops-to-3-as-pandemic-fades/

BOISE (AP) — Idaho’s unemployment rate dropped a tenth of a percent to 3% from April to May as the coronavirus pandemic fades, state officials said Friday.

The Idaho Department of Labor said that the total number of people unemployed has dropped nearly 63% compared to a year ago.

“Idaho’s unemployment rate continues to drop!” Republican Gov. Brad Little said on Twitter. “Idahoans are getting back to work and our economy is getting even better by the day!”

The state’s labor force grew a tenth of a percent to 901,494 as people continue moving to Idaho.

Of those, 874,143 are employed, boosting total employment by two-tenths of a percent. Just over 27,000 people are looking for work.

The labor force participation rate, comprised of those 16 years and older working or looking for work, remained unchanged at 62.7%.

Idaho’s nonfarm jobs from a year ago have increased by nearly 64,000, up about 9%. Officials say leisure and hospitality jobs, hit hard by the pandemic, are up 37% from a year ago. Those jobs have also increased 4.1% from February 2020, which was before the pandemic started forcing business shutdowns in the state.

The national unemployment rate dropped three-tenths of a percent in May, falling to 5.8%.

Every business in town is trying to hire. Everyone is hurting for employees here

A friend with a sandwich shop has been offering $17 an hour for a couple weeks and has yet to be able to hire anyone. $17/hour to make sandwiches

Even in small towns. The local Arctic Circle burger joint is paying pimply faced high school drop outs $15 an hour. I'm thinking I'll pack my lunch....

Why would people work when Big Brother & Big Nanny are paying them to not work?

Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

L.W.

My wife just paid $13.99 for an All American Slam at a Denny's on the east side of the Bay Area. Maybe they're paying $20/hr for busboys?

In the Bay area? Even if that's full time, that's $40,000 a year. Hard to make ends meet when rent takes up 60% of that...... I'm dreading the day we lose our neighbor's kids to move pipe in the summer. No idea where the replacements will come from, outside of Mexico.

Two economies in Idaho maybe. My daughter talked to some folks last week that own a feed store about an advertised job. She has forklift certification, several years in inventory control and record keeping, shipping and receiving, experience with animal feeds and supplements, and a propane service credential. Sounded like a perfect fit, until they told her it paid 9 bucks an hour.
She stopped in Hobby Lobby down in Twin Falls, they are advertising for entry level help at 17 bucks an hour. Go figure that.

Clam up or your paradise will be overrun.

Nah, they'll die before they'll give up their union jobs or their government pensions....

Idaho has lots of small businesses that haven't kept up with the economy.

On a more negative note, the local convenience store reports being shorted 75% on his beer order. WTF? Does our beer now come from China? Or is brewing hard work, too?

Convenience stores around here were offering 15.00 an hour for cashiers and Dairy Queen 14.35 for serving ice cream back before anybody heard of covid 19 {summer 2019}. Prices have gone up dramatically since then so naturally folks need to make more.

We've got manufacturing facilities/companies that apparently think it's still the 90's. Some offering 13.00 an hour and can't figure out why they don't get many applicants and the few they do get can't pass a background or drug test.

If we could send 30 million illegals back home, I think you would be surprised at how quickly America would get back to 1990. The last time we were "normal".
kwg