Growth seen in nonfarm employment
Though unemployment still high, Yuma County sees most new positions in Arizona
Yuma County’s unemployment rate is still among the highest in the U.S., but other workforce figures released by the state Thursday indicate more positions are being added here than the rest of the state.
The county had the only month-over-month nonfarm job gain for January in the whole state, albeit a measly one at 0.2 percent. However, a net gain was reported for every county for that month over January 2016, and Yuma had the biggest jump there too, at 3.5 percent.
Yuma County’s jobless figure for January was 14.3 percent, down one percentage point from December and a bit more than that from January 2016’s 15.8 percent.
Arizona’s unemployment rate for both December and January was 5 percent, while nationally it inched upwards to 4.8 percent for January. Monthly jobless numbers are usually reported during the following month but January’s are delayed every year because government statisticians revise figures from the previous year with additional information from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages.
Patrick Goetz of Arizona@ Work’s Yuma County offices said January was a very good month for them as well, with 406 job placements recorded. “For that report, it was the highest in all the delivery areas in the state. That’s something new, huh?” No layoffs were documented during the month, either.
There was a big drop into February in the number of placements, to 206, but that was still good enough for second place among the state’s workforce development offices, behind Pima County.
Most of the job orders are coming from local school districts, casinos, defense contractors, re- tail and hospitality sectors, he said. Open school district positions include continuously open teaching jobs, administrative posts, bus drivers and groundskeepers.
John Courtis, executive director of the Yuma County Chamber of Commerce, said his anecdotal information also points to a recent jump in hiring.
“I think the economy’s starting to pick up enough where we’re starting to backfill some open expansions, and I think the hospital expansion’s been marvelous. When you look at the new doctors they’re hiring, when you look at the ads in your own paper, and those doctors come with new staffs. And when that growth happens, you have a higher personal income,” he said.
Other factors are a bump in home and retail construction and improvements being made to update some of the local RV parks, “So there are some good things going on in the job market.”
According to the jobs numbers, which is drawn from a different survey than the unemployment figures, most of Yuma County’s job growth is within the health and educational services sector, with a 3.6 percent increase from December and a 13.2 percent in-
crease from January 2016.
But as summer draws ever closer, seasonal jobs tied to agriculture and tourism are beginning to dry up, as Goetz pointed out.
“It starts winding down soon here. I was driving up to the airport and noticed they’re starting to plant the hay and alfalfa. No more veggies here,” he said, as production of those much more labor-intensive crops moves to northern California.
Other areas seeing job growth in Yuma County over the last year include leisure and hospitality, professional services and trade, transportation and utilities; financial resources, manufacturing and construction and natural resources are shrinking.
According to another report released Thursday, Arizona’s employment is expected to grow slower in the next two years than it has in the past two.
New figures Thursday from the state Office of Economic Opportunity project Arizona will add 138,553 jobs between the second quarter of last year and the second quarter of 2018. That translates out to a 2.4 percent growth.
By contrast, the similar figure for the prior twoyear period was 2.6 percent.
Even the Phoenix metro area, which consists of Maricopa and Pinal Counties, which grows faster than most of the rest of the state, is seeing some cooling, with a projected 2.8 percent growth in the number of jobs. That’s down a tenth of a percentage point from the prior period.
There are indications that Pima County will finally emerge from its employment doldrums. The state agency figures the area will add 10,068 jobs in the projected period.
But if that doesn’t sound like much, consider the fact that the Office of Economic Opportunity figures Pima County added just 4,772 jobs in the prior two-year period for a tepid growth of 0.7 percent.
Things look a little better for the remaining 13 counties, with a projected job growth of 12,813 over the next two years, or 1.5 percent. A separate growth rate projection for Yuma County was not released.
One significant finding is that the biggest jump in employment will be among ``non-store retailers.’’ These are the Amazons of the world, companies selling products to consumers online. The estimate is that sector will grow by 4,752 jobs. But from a pure percentage figure, that computes out at a 23.8 percent increase from current employment levels.