Yuma's jobless rate inches up despite more hirings

Yuma's unemployment rate remains stubbornly high, creeping up to 29.9 percent for October, according to the latest numbers released Thursday by the Arizona Department of Administration.

The numbers are a mixed blessing for Yuma County residents, showing an increase in employment but an even greater increase in the number of people looking for work to drive up the jobless rate. As a result, October's jobless rate is up from September's 29.7 percent. It also is up from the previous year when October 2011 posted an unemployment rate of 28.8 percent.

Patrick Goetz, business services officer at the Yuma Private Industry Council, said the workforce development agency's One Stop centers saw more job orders in October but also more people coming for help in finding employment.

In October, 59 employers contacted YPIC for help in filling 109 job orders, he said. In comparison, there were only 66 job orders in September.

At the same time, 3,568 people visited YPIC's career center; in September, there were 853.

Part of the activity in October was due to YPIC assisting an agriculture company that was hiring for the winter produce season, Goetz said. Other agriculture companies are hiring as well for the winter, as evidenced by the advertisements in the Yuma Sun, he noted.

There also was hiring activity in October by retailers as they gear up for the holidays and the winter visitor season, he said. Hospitality hiring has picked up as well, he said. And NationsHealth continues to hire for the call center it opened recently in Yuma.

Goetz also noted there have been several events in recent weeks to help people find employment, among them ACHIEVE Human Services's DREAM Faire, an employment fair on Oct. 24 for individuals with disabilities; a veterans job fair held Oct. 24 in Somerton; “Hiring Our Heroes,” hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Nov. 7; and Arizona Western College's Family Night held Thursday. In addition, Marine Corps Air Station Yuma will hold a job and career fair Dec. 3.

Meanwhile, statewide, Arizona had a lackluster October in terms of job growth if the numbers ultimately prove accurate.

New figures from the Department of Administration show the state added 9,500 jobs last month in the private sector. But that's far below the nearly 18,000 jobs added between September and October of 2011. And the typical October month-over-month growth for the past decade — including the recession — is 11,600.

State economist Aruna Murthy said the numbers appear a bit out of kilter.

She said this is particularly true in the leisure and hospitality industry— everything from entertainment and recreation to hotels and restaurants — which should normally be growing this time of year. Instead, it lost 500 jobs.

Those numbers, she said, do not make sense. “I question them. It's very contradictory to anything that's happened in the past.”

Murthy said she wants to monitor the situation for several months before deciding if there's a real trend in the work “or just an aberration.”

The issue, she said, may come down to how her agency computes the numbers by surveying employers around the state.

“Although we target the same employers every month, the responses could vary,” Murthy explained.

For example, one month might produce just a 40 percent response rate versus 60 percent in another month.

The other sector of the economy where Murthy is reviewing the numbers is in health care. She said employment in that sector, one of the healthiest in the state, should be going up this time of year; it's not.

Even with all that, Murthy said there were enough jobs added in other sectors of the economy to trim the state's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate by a 10th of a point, to 8.1 percent.

Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services, contributed to this report.

Unemployment rates
(not seasonally adjusted unless otherwise stated)

-- Source: Arizona Department of Administration

Sector employment in 1,000s

* Different sectors have different peak dates
** Prior peak in October 2008

-- Source: Arizona Department of Administration