Jobless rate climbs to 16.2 percent

Truss Tek plant manager Steve Kauffman was somewhat surprised to get 40 applicants for one job opening at the Three-Mile area company.

Yet given Boundary County’s economic climate, where unemployment grew another .2 percent in November, Kauffman wasn’t shocked at the number interested in the crane operator’s position.

“I just didn’t expect to get quite that many who are qualified,” Kauffman said.

Last month, the county’s jobless rate crept up to 16.2 percent, which means 696 residents were out of work, according to Idaho Department of Labor. In October, the county’s unemployment rate was 16 percent and one year ago, it was 11.6 percent.

The county’s jobless rate is expected to worsen this month with the closing of Welco Lumber Co. in Naples. Ninety-three workers will lose jobs. Assuming all of those workers live in Boundary County, it could put the unemployment rate at 18.4 percent, said Bob Fick, spokesman for the Department of Labor in Boise.

“We don’t know that all 93 of those people live in Boundary County,” Fick said. “The unemployment number is based on the county were the worker lives.”

The number of Idaho workers without jobs hit yet another record at 68,800, according to the Labor Department. Job loss between November 2008 and this November was 33,400, nearly 9,000 less than in October, a signal that the rapid deterioration of the Idaho economy may have ended. The loss peaked at nearly 50,000 in August.

The unemployment rate for November was forecast up a tenth of a point from October to 9.1 percent and will likely continue rising into 2010.

Neighboring Adams and Valley counties had rates over 20 percent last month; it was the first time more than one county has had a rate of 20 percent or higher since June 1987.

In nearby Bonner County, 12.2 percent of 2,570 workers were without jobs. That’s down from 12.7 percent one month earlier, yet greater than 7.6 percent from one year ago.