Arizona’s Unemployment Rate Reaches 27-year High, Phoenixmetrocrossing Finds 18,000 Jobs

Pasadena, CA -- (SBWire) -- 09/22/2010 -- Arizona’s jobless rate reached 9.7 percent in August, the highest in 27 years. The figure just three years ago was 3.6 percent.

The Phoenix metro area’s unemployment rate was 8.8 percent, with most of the counties having an unemployment rate above 8 percent. Yuma County’s jobless rate was the highest at 23.7 percent. According to the US Department of Labor, if discouraged, marginal workers and part-time workers looking for fulltime jobs are added into the calculation, overall the state’s jobless rate shoots up to 18.5 percent. The state also has the distinction of having the second-highest poverty rate in the country at 21.2 percent.

The state’s economist at its Commerce Department, Aruna Murthy believes that in September, the state’s economy will see a positive job growth. While economist Marshall Vest of the University of Arizona believes that the state has already recovered all the jobs it had lost during the past year. Other economists are predicting similar growth in September.

28,200 new jobs were created from July to August according to data from the Commerce Department. Most of the jobs were in the education sector as schools reopened and hired staff such as cafeteria workers and bus drivers. The industries seeing increased hiring were construction, mining, retail stores, and private schools and colleges.

The state’s main economic driver, the Phoenix metro area has about two-third of the state’s population and still has around 18,000 job openings. “Phoenix still has several white-collar jobs in various sectors such as accounting, financial services, and information technology and also blue-collar and retail jobs” says A. Harrison Barnes, CEO of PhoenixMetroCrossing. The data is from PhoenixMetroCrossing, a job aggregator site that focuses on jobs in the Phoenix metro region.