New figures from the Arizona Department of Commerce show the tri-city's unemployment rate fell a tad in April.
The seasonally-adjusted rate fell from 8.9 percent in March to 8.8 percent in April.
A couple of economists said Thursday afternoon that the modest dip is nothing to get excited about.
Jack York, senior economist for the ADOC, said the April unemployment rate is basically static.
"It looks like our seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate model basically left the whole state, in every area, essentially unchanged," he said. "It looks like things remain relatively stable in Prescott."
Yavapai County continues to sit third behind Yuma County's 23.3 percent unemployment rate and Mohave County's 9.6 percent rate.
Statewide figures fell from 7.8 percent in March to 7.7 percent in April.
The national unemployment rate rose from 8.5 percent in March to 8.9 percent in April.
York said he expects unemployment in the Prescott area and statewide to continue to rise for the rest of this year before it starts declining.
"It looks like (Yavapai County is) mirroring the state," he said.
That means a steady rise in unemployment possibly into the third quarter of 2010, according to York, who said the county's civilian labor force was 97,800 in April 2008.
Of that number, 4,200 of those people were unemployed.
A year later, the labor force is 98,500, with 8,200 of those people without jobs
Matt Croucher, an economist at the W.P. Carey School of Business in Tempe, believes things will turn slightly worse in the next couple of months before signs of overall improvement surface.
Croucher said employment is traditionally a lagging indicator of the overall economy.
"It's going to take awhile for employment levels to pick up and get back to nicer levels because firms are going to be very wary about hiring until absolutely necessary," he said. "At the Arizona level, I think we're going to see unemployment get slightly worse still."
Croucher believes that employment will bottom out in the next six months and then begin to pick up toward the end of the year.
Croucher points out that the rate at which employers add jobs is usually a slower rate than when they cut them.
But Croucher doesn't believe we will hit 10 percent unemployment, in part because people will leave the state for jobs.
One of the keys to turning things around is getting consumers to have a more optimistic outlook and start spending money, according to Croucher.
"However, what I do think we're going to see in the future is not the kind of spend-happy kind of society that we've lived in the last few years," he said.
"We're probably in the future going to see more households and more consumers saving a little bit more of those paychecks rather than going out and spending everything they earn plus everything on the credit cards.
"In some sense it's probably a good thing."
Reader Comments
Posted: Monday, May 25, 2009
Article comment by:
DUH
"Unemployment rates will drop before they get better." We're not in first grade anymore people. It seems as if they are treating everybody like they are children and don't understand anything.
Posted: Sunday, May 24, 2009
Article comment by:
Nancy
That is always an overlooked issue for this area. The majority of jobs in the tri-city area pay in the $7-$10 per hour range. Most jobs are service based and pay really low. The unemployment rate in Phoenix is lower than Prescott and Phoenix pay is much higher.
Posted: Sunday, May 24, 2009
Article comment by:
Phillykid
Maybe Mr. Croucher can explain why the salaries and wages, in this area, are stuck in the '70s.
