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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

State gets rosy report about jobs

Josh Wright Staff writer

BOISE – Idaho added more jobs last year than in the previous two years combined, but the state’s commerce and labor director says a boost in rural economic development funding is needed.

The new jobs show Idaho is doing well despite the recent national economic downturn, Roger Madsen told legislative budget writers Monday.

“In this room, the foundation for recovery is being laid,” he said in a presentation to the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee. “The potential for economic activity is great if we go after it.”

The 17,600 new jobs in Idaho represent the fourth-highest growth rate in the country, Madsen said. That increase was due in part to more than three dozen companies relocating to Idaho or expanding their operations, including 75 jobs added at Unicep Packaging in Sandpoint and 55 at Ready Set Go, a mortgage marketing business in Smelterville.

But, Madsen said, the rural economy remains far too soft. More than half the state’s counties have at least 6 percent unemployment and five counties have double-digit jobless numbers. Shoshone County’s 10.9 percent rate is the third-highest in Idaho.

Gov. Dirk Kempthorne is calling for a $950,000 increase in the Rural Idaho Initiative to bolster funding for 12 economic development workers across Idaho and add two positions. Rural development coordinators are in place in Bonners Ferry and in the Silver Valley.

Madsen called past spending on the Rural Idaho Initiative “some of the most wisely used state dollars in recent history.”

Lt. Gov. Jim Risch told committee members that rural economic development is critically important.

“We have two economies,” Risch said. “The 39 small counties are way different” from the five larger ones – Kootenai, Ada, Twin Falls, Bonneville and Bannock.

The Rural Idaho Initiative provides grants to areas in need of public infrastructure for economic expansion and job creation. Some of the grants handed out over the past few years include $500,000 to Kootenai County for Empire Airlines improvements and $300,000 for the Litehouse Foods treatment facility in Sandpoint.

More than 700 jobs have been created or retained due to 31 grants the Department of Commerce and Labor has handed out.

The department has financed training for 1,500 people through work force development grants. Those Idahoans’ earnings average $10.60 per hour plus benefits.

“Don’t we want to try to get higher wages than that?” asked Rep. Shirley Ringo, D-Moscow.

Of course, the state would like to do better, Madsen said. He pointed to the $15-per-hour jobs that Hewlett-Packard recently added in Boise.

“But that’s a challenge in rural areas,” he said.

Yet, the Commerce and Labor Department shed two dozen jobs – mainly seasonal and temporary employees – and froze hiring throughout the state’s 24 offices because fewer people are applying for unemployment insurance, Madsen said.

“We get more federal funding in tough times,” he said. “When things are going well, we have less work to do.”

The Commerce and Labor departments merged last summer in a move proposed by Kempthorne. The transition was made without cutting funding or employees in the combined department.

Madsen, meanwhile, praised the governor’s corporate tax incentive plan as well as his $1.6 billion highway proposal.

He said that as many as 75,000 jobs could be created under Kempthorne’s Connecting Idaho proposal, which would accomplish 30 years of road construction in only a decade.