County job growth up 4%, but unemployment rate climbs

Yuma County’s unemployment rate continued to rise in June, but it also recorded the highest yearover-year job growth in Arizona, according to monthly surveys released by the state Thursday.

The county’s job base was 4.6 percent larger than in June 2016, according to an employer survey conducted by the state Office of Economic Opportunity for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The biggest jump was found in manufacturing, while the financial services sector dropped 5.6 percent during the same period.

Numbers-wise, this adds up to 2,400 new jobs in Yuma County, according to the survey. The next-highest yearly growth recorded was in the Phoenix metro area, which includes Maricopa and Pinal counties. That increase was 3 percent, equating to 58,000 jobs.

Greg LaVann, senior vice president of the Greater Yuma Economic Development Corporation, said GYEDC has been making some inroads recently in attracting more manufacturing jobs, but some of those haven’t even been announced yet so they couldn’t be showing up in the numbers.

LaVann said Thursday GYEDC will be releasing its year-end report next week, but he didn’t have all the data back and couldn’t comment until then on how many jobs might have been created in the last year.

“I do know some groups like Alside (windows) and other companies have expanded their workforce significantly from one year to the next, but I don’t have

the final figures to speak to all of the growth,” LaVann said.

As usual, the county didn’t fare as well in the separate unemployment report, conducted through a household phone survey. It recorded its highest unemployment rate of 2017, 20.5 percent, after hitting 19 percent in May. It’s just a tenth of a percent below June 2016’s number. And it’s still the highest in Arizona, followed by Apache County at 11.6 percent.

Some seasonal increase is expected as the summer heat settles in, but there’s debate on how accurate the rate is, with some people more concerned about having among the highest rates in the country than others.

Patrick Goetz, business services officer for the Yuma offices of Arizona@ Work, the statewide development agency, said total job orders were up in June to 167, and recent hiring by Sprouts Farmers Market and Black Bear Diner could be helping to boost the job numbers.

There are already about 120 job orders for July, he said,

“None of them have been real specific as far as any sector,” he said. “It’s kind of across the board, we’ve been getting this stuff from manufacturing, retail, casinos, restaurants,” he said.

Statewide, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for June remained unchanged from May at 5.1 percent. And the state shed 5,700 private sector jobs over the same period, including the expected seasonal losses in businesses dependent on winter visitors.

Yet the sector of the economy that grew the most in the past year is bars and restaurants. Even with the those seasonal declines, there are 17,600 more people working in bars and restaurants now than a year ago.

At the same time, yearover-year employment at grocery stores is down by 300.

“We’re seeing more and more people spending more on food services and drinking places outside of the home than they are at traditional grocery stores or food products that you might cook in house,’’ said Doug Walls, research administrator for the state’s Office of Economic Opportunity. “It could just be a culture change.”

That would mirror what’s been happening elsewhere in the economy, with younger people more interested in renting than in buying homes, and more interested in using mass transit or ride-sharing services than buying their own vehicle.

But it also could be that people feel confident enough about their finances, both current and future, that they’re willing to spend the extra cash for the convenience or just pure pleasure of eating out.

And there are other signs that Arizonans also are more optimistic and upbeat about the future.

Walls cited figures that show the number of people who leave their jobs voluntarily is at 2.2 percent of total employment, a figure not seen since before the recession.

Elsewhere in the economy, the new report has the state’s manufacturing industry showing some signs of life. It added 2,000 jobs last month and 3,900 in the last year, even with computer and electronic parts manufacturers shedding 2,400 positions since last June.

Much of that was offset by strong showings in aerospace and defense-related industries, particularly in Pima County where employment has grown by 700 in the past year, a 6.1 percent gain.

Those 700 aerospace and defense jobs added in the past 12 months represents more than half of all the private sector jobs the county gained over that same period.

Overall, the state did lose 37,100 government jobs between May and June. But these largely reflect those who are employed at state and local schools who are not on year-round contracts.