"In the nearly 34 years I have worked with or for the Idaho Department of Labor, the past year has been the most challenging for Idaho's economy, its 50,000 businesses, its three-quarters of a million workers and for our agency," state Labor Director Roger Madsen told JFAC this morning. Just three years ago, in 2007, Idaho's unemployment rate was at a record low of 2.8 percent. Today, it's 9.1 percent, not that far off the all-time high of 9.4 percent in 1983. In two years, Idaho lost 8.8 percent of all of its jobs, Madsen said - most of them in the last 18 months. Construction employment has dropped 35 percent since the recession started; high-tech manufacturing, 31 percent; and retail is off 8 percent.

However, Madsen said, "In the last several months, we have seen signs of improvement." He said modest job growth is projected through mid-2011, though it still likely will be late 2013 or early 2014 before the number of Idaho jobs rises back to the pre-recession level of 670,000.

Unemployment benefits were paid to more than 116,000 Idahoans last year, Madsen said, a record $403 million in regular state benefits plus another $240 million in federal supplemental benefits. "This huge amount has increased the economic pressure on our employers, who pay the bill. But it's money spent on house payments and rent, food and clothes, utilities and other essentials - money that generally goes to businesses in the communities throughout Idaho where these workers and their families live," he said.  Madsen called unemployment benefits "one of the best tools the state has during a recession," and said the U.S. Department of Labor estimates that without unemployment benefits, recessions would be 15 percent longer and deeper.

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