Idaho employers opened 2010 by hiring fewer workers than in any two-month period on record, sending February’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate to 9.5 percent and stopping just short of breaking the record 9.6 percent rate in 1982-83.
The February rate jumped another two-tenths of a point to 9.5 percent after rising two-tenths to 9.3 percent in January from a revised December rate of 9.1 percent. That put Idaho within two-tenths of the national unemployment rate of 9.7 percent.
The number of jobless workers reached a record 71,600 in February, up 1,500 from January. More than 52,000 idled workers collected over $15.7 million in unemployment this week, bringing total unemployment checks for the first 11 weeks of the year to over $181 million. Unemployment benefits totaled $643 million in 2009.
Nez Perce County’s unemployment rate in February was 7.3 percent; Clearwater County, 15.3 percent; Idaho County, 11.3 percent; and Lewis County, 6.1 percent. Lewiston’s unemployment rate was 6.8 percent.
(Idaho Department of Labor)
