Oregon Public Broadcasting

Idaho has had the hottest job market in the Northwest, but for the first time in more than three years the unemployment rate there has climbed above four percent. Coeur d’Alene correspondent Doug Nadvornick reports.

When 2008 started Idaho’s jobless rate was 2.7 percent. Since then it’s been climbing steadily, to 3.1 percent in April and now 4.1 percent in July.

Idaho Labor Department spokesman Bob Fick says many high tech jobs have disappeared with the slowing national economy. But he says the big factor is construction.

Bob Fick: “Construction drove the expansion and construction’s slowing the economy down. The bust of the housing boom has taken a huge number of jobs out of the economy.”

Labor Department figures show the jobless rates in Boise and Coeur d’Alene are both up nearly two full percentage points from July 2007.

The trend in the Gem State matches what’s going on in Washington, where the rate has climbed eight-tenths of a percent in the last four months. In Oregon the unemployment rate has been stable all year.

Fick says Idaho still has one of the lowest jobless rates in the nation. The national rate is 5.7 percent.