State’s jobless rate again at record low

At 3.7%, it ranks 13th-best in U.S.

Arkansas’ unemployment rate fell to 3.7 percent in February, setting a record low for the second-straight month, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday.

Arkansas’ unemployment rate was the 13th-lowest in the country and fell from a 3.8 percent rate in January.

The national unemployment rate was 4.7 percent in February.

The number of unemployed Arkansans in February fell below 50,000 for the first time since 1976, when the bureau began reporting unemployment statistics monthly.

There were 49,665 Arkansans unemployed in February, down from 50,693 in January.

“This was a very strong report overall,” said Michael Pakko, chief economist at the Institute for Economic Advancement at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Over the past six years, since February 2011, the number of unemployed Arkansans dropped from a peak of 114,892 to fewer than 50,000, Pakko noted.

“There’s no doubt the economy is improving and has been for a long time,” said John Shelnutt, the administrator for economic analysis and tax research for the state’s Department of Finance and Administration. “We are approaching the lonGov.

gest expansion in post [World War II] history.”

Even with a 3.7 percent unemployment rate and fewer than 50,000 people unemployed, the job market isn’t necessarily tight, Shelnutt said.

The labor force fell by 7,398 people in February compared with February last year. That can be a cause for concern, said Mervin Jebaraj, assistant director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.

“The interesting thing to look at is what exactly composes the labor force decline,” Jebaraj said. “If it’s retirement, kids going to college, that’s great. But if it’s loss of prime-age workers, that is something that is concerning.”

It is more likely that prime-age workers who leave the labor market for a long time will have a difficult time getting back to work, Jebaraj said, because it gets harder for someone who has been unemployed for a long time to land a job.

The state’s report on nonfarm payroll jobs also was strong, Pakko said.

There were seven industry sectors that added jobs in the past year and four that lost jobs over the same period.

The educational and health services sector added 8,400 jobs, the biggest gain in the state, followed by the professional and business services sector, which added 5,100 jobs.

Manufacturing added 2,100 jobs in the past year.

Construction was up 700 jobs in the past year, to 49,300 jobs.

“Both of those goods-producing sectors — manufacturing and construction — have been lagging behind service-providing jobs,” Pakko said.

Trade, transportation and utilities — the state’s largest sector, with almost 250,000 jobs added 900 jobs in February compared with February last year.

Government saw the biggest drop, with 1,600 fewer jobs.

It isn’t surprising that the unemployment rate continues to fall and that nonfarm payroll jobs continue to rise, said Greg Kaza, executive director of the Arkansas Policy Foundation in Little Rock.

The country is in the third-longest expansion — the time after the end of a recession — in its history, Kaza said. It is to be expected that the unemployment rate would fall in an extended expansion, Kaza said.

The recession ended in June 2009, making this expansion seven years and nine months long.

New Hampshire posted the lowest unemployment rate in the country last month at 2.7 percent, followed by Hawaii and South Dakota at 2.8 percent each, and Colorado and North Dakota at 2.9 percent each.

New Mexico had the highest rate at 6.8 percent, followed by Alaska at 6.4 percent, Alabama at 6.2 percent, Louisiana at 5.8 percent and Illinois at 5.4 percent.