Construction industry perks up in Arizona

Jobless rate in Yuma County inches up to 14.6%

PHOENIX — The state’s beleaguered construction industry is finally showing some consistent signs of life.

New figures Thursday show the number of people working in that sector in Arizona was 12,100 higher in January than a year earlier. That’s an 8.8 percent increase, compared with a 2.7 percent boost in overall private sector employment in the state.

Yuma County’s number of construction jobs dipped by 100 in January from the previous month, but still landed 100 jobs above the January 2017 level, according to the same monthly jobs report, released later than usual due to the work of revising employment figures done after the end of each calendar year.

Doug Walls, research administrator for the state Office of Economic Opportunity, said the job gains were across all segments, ranging from new homes and offices to industrial-scale projects like road construction. And Walls said there are indicators that even better times are on the horizon.

One is an increase in new homes.

“We continue to see an upward climb for the number of permits that are being issued,’’ he said. While it’s nowhere near the pre-recession peak of 9,000 a month, it is back in the 3,500 range — far higher when it dropped below 1,000 in 2009 and 2010.

But that’s not all. Walls said there has been a steady uptick in the price of homes being sold in the Phoenix area, which is tracked monthly.

“We do continue to see improvements and increases in housing prices which could be an indicator for pent-up demand within the construction industry,’’ he said.

Still, that sector of the economy has a long way to go to recovering all the jobs lost since before the recession — assuming that is even possible.

In June 2006 construction employment peaked at 244,300. In fact, the state’s economy was so built on growth that one out of every 11 jobs in the state was in construction.

By contrast, the most recent figures put construction employment at 148,900, close to 6.3 percent of all private sector employment.

The developments in construction come as the state’s jobless rate for January came in at 4.8 percent, up a tenth of a point from December but still below the same time last year when it was 5.2 percent. The state, however, still lags the nation as a whole where the unemployment rate remains at 4.1 percent.

As expected, the number of people employed by private employers in January dropped by about 1.4 percent.

That kind of decrease normally occurs after the Christmas season with losses in both retail trade as well as employment in bars, restaurants and hotels.

But employment in the state’s computer and electronic parts industry added another 100 jobs between December and January. Walls said that brings yearover-year employment up by 2,200 which he said is the largest annual increase in 18 years.

Overall manufacturing in all sectors was down by 1,100 in January but still 7,900 above the prior year. Walls said that translates into a 4.9 percent annual growth rate, compared with 1.5 percent for the rest of the country.

Yuma County’s overall unemployment figure also rose two-tenths of a percent after the end of the holiday retail season at 14.6 percent, but that is an improvement over January 2017’s

14.8 percent. The number of positions reported in the monthly employer survey was the same as January 2017’s 55,900, dropping 800 from December.

Arizona@Work Employer Engagement Officer Patrick Goetz said Thursday the workforce development agency had 2,718 people seeking job-hunting help pass through its Yuma County locations in January, during which 198 jobs (which can include multiple positions) were posted by 42 employers. This was an increase over last year.

In February the number of clients dropped to 2,248, with 157 jobs posted from 34 employers; these numbers were down slightly from 2017, he said.

One of the area’s agricultural coolers, which Goetz said he cannot disclose the name of, will be shutting down at the end of this month, he said, and 60 employees will not be recalled

next season.

On the plus side, he said several seafood companies from Alaska are beginning their seasonal summer hiring at the Yuma centers, and Arizona@Work is accepting resumes for a medical device manufacturer that may open a facility in Yuma.

Resumes for positions including plant manager, engineering and maintenance manager, process controls engineer, quality manager, machine technician, molding operator, and extrusion machine operator are being sought for the company, which is not being named yet.

They can be emailed to BSO@ypic.com or dropped off at the Arizona@Work locations at 3826 W. 16th St. or 1185 S. Redondo Center Drive in Yuma, or the Goodwill Career Center, 3097 S. 8th Avenue in Yuma.