More Economic Decline: DoL reveals true reason for low unemployment rate in Idaho; the unemployed are leaving the Gem State! But where are they going?

29 May 2014 (17:54 UTC-07 Tango)/29 Rajab 1435/08 Khordad 1393/01 Ji Si (5th) 4712

Once again, reality bitch slaps Idaho’s own state economist (and TV news media): The Gem State’s unemployment rate is not going down due to job creation, it’s going down because there is an ongoing exodus of unemployed leaving for jobs elsewhere!

And once again the area of Idaho with the most residents fleeing for their economic lives is east Idaho, specifically Bannock County.

For the past few years the unemployment rate has been falling in Idaho, and every time we hear state economists and local TV news reports saying that’s a good sign for the labor market.  Yet only a few weeks later we get the real news, that the unemployment rate fell because Idahoans gave up looking for work and left!

For 2013 the city of Pocatello saw 382 residents flee.  That’s big for city with a population of about 54-thousand.  (it also explains the massive amount of homes and apartment complexes up for sale)

But wait there’s more.  Already this year Pocatello saw Warren Buffet shutdown a major employer, the Heinz plant.  State Department of Labor (DoL) officials said the result was the loss of 410 direct Heinz jobs, and 200 additional outside jobs in support of Heinz operations, for a total of 610 jobs lost by the time the Heinz factory is completely shuttered this summer.    So that’s potentially 610 more local residents fleeing for their economic lives (in the past two months I’ve already witnessed several families in my neighborhood pack up and leave literally overnight).

According to the latest Idaho DoL numbers Pocatello continues to lead the Gem State with job losses and mass exodus of residents.  Chubbuck (with a population of 14-thousand) takes third position.  Both Chubbuck and Pocatello are in Bannock County.  The city of Blackfoot (population 12-thousand), in Bingham County, takes second position for population loss.

This exodus has been ongoing since before 2013:

The month of October brought lower unemployment numbers to the state because workers are leaving the state’s labor force……..October marked the fifth straight month of labor force decline. Over 7,000 workers have left the labor force since May…….Department of Employment figures show employers reported hiring over 17,000 new workers in October, but nearly all of them were due to shifts within the labor pool because of retirements, firings and other separations rather than creation of new jobs.”-Blackfoot Journal, 17 November 2012

But where are Idahoans going once they leave the Gem State? California?

Based on my own Job Losses & Store Closings reports California leads the whole country in job losses.  The Golden State has also been experiencing it’s own exodus of unemployed looking for work elsewhere.

In 2005, for the first time the number of people leaving the Golden State outpaced those moving in: 160 people leaving for every 100 people moving in.  In 2011 the number of those fleeing for their economic lives was still more than those moving in: 120 escaping for every 100 making the mistake of calling California their new home.

Unfortunately many of those ex-Californians moved to Idaho (those dumb asses)!  In fact it seems that many people fleeing their home states are simply not doing their homework and end up moving to states that don’t have any new jobs!

So what states are seeing true job growth?  According to many reports Texas and North Dakota are seeing massive job growth.

Forbes claims that North Dakota has jobs because of the oil boom.  But I’ve also seen reports that show the oil boom has plateaued, and jobs are now being cut back.

Many reports cite Texas as the place to go for employment, but they’re based on the generous incentive Texas offers companies to move in and the fact that people are indeed flooding into the Lone Star State (but that doesn’t mean they’re all finding employment).  My own ongoing reports on Job Losses & Store Closings show that Texas is actually losing a lot of jobs (a lot more than Idaho), as well as companies outright shutting down.

So how can you do your employment research?  Well I’ve discovered there is no hard and fast way, even the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is flawed.

The BLS Current Employment Statistics (CES) reports, for the month of April 2014, show that Texas is the leader in job creation, followed (surprisingly) by California.  The state of Illinois is the big loser with a loss of 6800 jobs!

The BLS CES report is not hard and fast data but simply surveys approximately 144,000 businesses and government agencies”.  My own Job Losses & Store Closings reports, which are based on actual reports of job destruction, show California is still a leader in job destruction, and Texas is killing off far more jobs than Idaho (however, I do agree that Illinois is going down the unemployment toilet).

I have a hypothesis about where many of the unemployed are going: They’re actually leaving the United States.  This would also explain the massive student population decline affecting grade schools and universities, both public and private.  I’ve often asked “Where are all those students going?”  I can’t believe that potential college students would give up on higher education for a job flipping burgers (and some employment data show jobs for young adults are the most scarce).  And what about all those grade schools whining about funding cut backs because their student populations are crashing?  Entire families just up and disappearing?   It seems to me that the declining labor force participation and the declining student populations across the United States are directly connected, and that many families are not just leaving their home states but are fleeing the U.S. altogether.

Basically, there is no true economic recovery taking place anywhere in the United States!

Yet another east Idaho mall going down!

Coldwater Creek…..All remaining stores to shutdown! 

Ashley Furniture shuts down liquidation center in Pocatello! 

GENERAL MILLS ABANDONS EAST IDAHO!

IDAHO POLITICIANS GIVE AWAY MORE THAN $18-MILLION IN IDAHO TAXES, TO OUT-O-STATE LAWYERS!

IDAHO POLITICIANS GIVE AWAY MORE THAN $1-MILLION IN IDAHO TAXES, TO FRANCE!

IDAHO CHRISTIAN REPUBLICAN RIPS OFF TAXPAYERS THEN GIVES FLIPPANT EXPLANATION!

Fred Meyer & Albertsons……did not close down in the 1990s