Idaho’s slowly improving economy has not only reduced the official unemployment, but for the first time since the recession began in 2007 it has reduced the state’s rate of underemployment.
More than 20,000 workers who were underemployed found better work between 2011 and 2012 to drive the state’s underemployment rate down three percentage points to just under 17 percent. The decline of more than a full percentage point in the official unemployment rate of 7.1 percent in 2012 brought the combined rate down to 24 percent from a peak of over 28 percent in 2011.
Underemployment is not a hard and fast statistic. It is based on a number of assumptions and does not attempt to measure holiday or seasonal workers.
These underemployment statistics, compiled by Principal Research Analyst John Panter, come from two categories:
- Employed workers who are working part-time or temporary jobs but want full-time work based on the ratio of part-time and temporary jobs listed with the 25 local Labor Department offices.
- Workers who have associate degrees or higher and are currently employed but have filed with a local office to find another job.