Idaho’s March jobless rate tells a story of layoffs, rebounds — and newcomers

Idaho’s unemployment rate continues to improve, and is doing better than the nation as a whole, according to new numbers from the Idaho Department of Labor.

The state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 3.2% in March, according to the Labor Department. That’s compared with a rate of 2% in March 2020, when COVID-19 officially arrived in Idaho — followed by the staggering 11.5% rate in April 2020 due to pandemic layoffs.

The national unemployment rate for March 2021 was 6%.

As Idaho saw an influx of new residents in the past year, many of those new Idahoans joined the state’s labor force. The addition of people working in Idaho helped to offset a still sizable number of Idahoans who lost jobs in the pandemic.

Six industries showed job gains in March 2021 compared with March 2020, the department said: financial activities (up 9.4%), construction (up 7%) and the trade, transportation and utilities sectors (up 5%).

Four employment sectors instead showed job losses: information (down 11.4%), other services (down 6.3%), government (down 1%) and leisure and hospitality (down 0.5%).

The unemployment rate for February was 3.3%, according to the department.