Idaho Unemployment Rate Drops to 8%
For the seventh straight month Idaho’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell in February. The Idaho Department of Labor reports employers increased payrolls slightly during the month which drove the unemployment rate down by a tenth of a point to an even eight percent.
The department’s monthly report indicates Idaho businesses hired over eleven thousand workers for the third month in a row. Nearly half of the new hires were for jobs created since January.
2100 more workers were on the job in February, pushing total employment to nearly 715,000. It is the eighth month in a row that employment levels have risen.
Forty of the state’s 44 counties recorded lower rates in February than in January. Pocatello posted a February unemployment rate of 7.3 percent; Idaho Falls, 7 percent; and Rexburg, 6 percent.
