Job losses in construction and industry pushed Idaho's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate up one-tenth of a percentage point to 2.8 percent in January, the Idaho Labor Department said Friday.
Nationally, unemployment was unchanged at 5 percent.
The January estimate came after dramatic revisions by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to the employment figures for 2007, the state said. Average employment was dropped by 5,200 to under 734,000, while average unemployment was increased 600 to 20,500. That set the average unemployment rate at a record low 2.7 percent.
Those revisions put the monthly rate at 2.8 percent for the first three months of 2007 and 2.7 percent for the last nine, eliminating extreme month-to-month swings in employment that seemed questionable at the time they were reported, the Labor Department said.
But in significantly smoothing out the seasonally adjusted statistics for last year, the bureau erased the evidence of Idaho's economy slowing in the fall.
That slowdown has been confirmed by increases in unemployment insurance benefit claims, a reduction in nonfarm job growth, and tax receipts falling below projected levels.
On a seasonally adjusted basis, the rising unemployment rate in January was not unusual. Over the last 30 years, the unemployment rate has increased seven times, decreased nine and remained unchanged 14 times.
Based on the revised federal statistics for December, the total number of people working in January rose by just 500 from December to 737,400. That covered a third of the 1,500 people entering the labor force in January, enough to raise the unemployment rate a tenth of a point.
Construction accounted for 30 percent of January's unemployment benefit claims.
The only sectors experiencing job growth in January were recreation and accommodations. Good snow conditions provided more job opportunities at Idaho ski resorts, the Labor Department said.
