Tagged: unemployment

There’s new information showing Michigan’s drop in unemployment is spread out across most of the state.

Last week, the Michigan Department of Technology, Management & Budget reported that the state’s unemployment rate had fallen to 8.8 percent. The last time the state’s jobless rate was below 9 percent was September of 2008.

New data from the state shows the decline was spread widely through Michigan. 

Unemployment numbers in the Midwest are bad. Not as bad as when the recession was at its worst, but there are still a lot of people looking for jobs. Even so, we keep hearing that some employers can’t find enough skilled workers. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder says in his state alone, there are more than 77,000 job openings that can’t be filled.

There is really only one way to bridge that gap. People need training. And the way people are getting that training is changing.

Wendy Whitmore is the CEO of EMR Approved, a company in Chicago that works with doctors and hospitals that are making the switch to electronic medical records.

Four years ago, EMR Approved didn’t exist. Back then, Wendy Whitmore was running SSG Consulting, an IT consulting firm that wasn’t doing so well.

So she decided to try something new, and she took 12 of her employees with her.

Whitmore still runs SSG Consulting, and some of her employees straddle both businesses, but what they’re doing now is totally new.

Michigan’s unemployment rate continues to decline.

Michigan’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dropped three tenths of one percent to 9% in January.

During the past year, Michigan’s unemployment rate is down nearly two full percentage points.

The state’s unemployment rate is now at its lowest mark since September 2008.  It’s also about five percentage points lower than at the height of the recession in 2009. 

Manufacturing and Professional services saw the biggest jump in new hires.

The news that Michigan's unemployment rate dropped again for the month of December was good news for Governor Snyder's State of the State address, but this rate drop is accompanied by a continued drop in Michigan's overall labor force.

The labor force is the overall number of employed people plus unemployed people.

People are categorized as "unemployed" if they are out of work AND they have been looking for a job in the last 28 days.

As my chart shows above, the labor force in Michigan has been dropping consistently since 2006.

Comparing January 2006 to December 2011, there are around 432,000 fewer people in Michigan either working or looking for work.

Few monthly number reports generate as much audience response as the monthly unemployment numbers.

Monthly housing numbers or monthly retail sales figures just don't seem to push people's buttons as much.

When we report on the unemployment numbers, we often receive comments attempting to inform us what the "unemployment rate" actually means - like this comment we received recently:

Unemployment numbers are comprised of those that are in the job market for the past 30 days. It does not include those that have not been in the job market in the last 30 days: people who have given up looking; those that have gone off unemployment because it has run out.

While some of this is true, not all of it is.

According to the Michigan Department of Technology, Management & Budget, for the month of November most of the "seasonally unadjusted unemployment rates" fell in 14 of the state's 17 major labor market areas.

From their press release:

“November was a favorable month in many of Michigan’s local labor markets,” said Rick Waclawek, director of the Bureau of Labor Market Information & Strategic Initiatives.  “The only increases in unemployment were seasonal and expected in the state’s northern regions with the conclusion of the summer and fall tourism seasons.”

Officials from the Department of Technology, Management and Budget say when comparing November 2011 to November 2010 - all of the state's 17 regions experienced declines:

From November 2010 to November 2011, unemployment rates fell in all of the state’s 17 regions.  Over-the-year rate declines ranged from 1.7 to 3.3 percentage points with a significant median drop of over two and a half percentage points.  The largest rate decreases since November 2010 occurred in the Flint and Muskegon-Norton Shores MSAs along with the Northeast Lower Michigan region.

Here's the list of the 17 major labor markets in Michigan by rank of lowest unemployment rate (Ann Arbor area) to highest (Northeast Lower Michigan).

The list compares unemployment rates from November 2010 to rates in November 2011:

1. ANN ARBOR MSA- 6.9 percent to 5.2 percent
2. LANSING - EAST LANSING MSA 8.3 percent to 6.4 percent
3. GRAND RAPIDS - WYOMING MSA 9.0 percent to 6.5 percent
4. HOLLAND - GRAND HAVEN MSA 9.3 percent to 6.5 percent
5. BATTLE CREEK MSA  9.5percent to 6.9 percent
6. KALAMAZOO - PORTAGE MSA 9.3 percent to 6.9 percent
7. BAY CITY MSA10.0 percent to 7.4 percent
8. MONROE MSA 10.3 percent to 7.5 percent
9. SAGINAW-Saginaw Township North  MSA 10.3 percent to 7.7 percent
10. JACKSON MSA 10.8 percent to 7.8 percent
11. NILES - BENTON HARBOR MSA 10.6 percent to 8.2 percent
12. UPPER PENINSULA LMA 10.6 percent to 8.2 percent
13. MUSKEGON - NORTON SHORES MSA 11.5 percent to 8.4 percent
14. FLINT MSA 12.0 percent to 8.7 percent
15. NORTHWEST LOWER MICHIGAN 12.4 percent to 9.4 percent
16. DETROIT-WARREN-LIVONIA MSA11.6 percent to 9.5 percent
17. NORTHEAST LOWER MICHIGAN 13.7 percent to 10.6 percent
    

The state has issued bonds to wipe clean a $3.2 billion debt to the federal government.  That’s money Michigan had to borrow to cover its unemployment benefits costs.

Michigan racked up the debt because the tax employers pay into the Unemployment Trust Fund wasn’t keeping pace with payments that needed to be made to laid-off workers.

Employers will be the ones on the hook for paying off the bonds. The state’s Unemployment Insurance Agency will send out invoices this spring.

The bond sale was made possible by legislation passed just before lawmakers adjourned for the year. That’s important, since repaying the federal government by the end of the year will ultimately allow employers to save as much as $200 million in interest costs.

Michigan had to pay $38 million in interest on its unemployment insurance loans this year.

Governor Rick Snyder signed major changes to employer paid benefits into law yesterday.

The changes will limit how much an injured worker can be compensated based on how much an insurance company thinks that worker could make at another job, among other things.

The new law will also make it more difficult for a person to collect jobless benefits.

Governor Snyder signed big changes to employer paid benefits into law this afternoon. One limits how much injured workers can be compensated (basing their pay on how much an injured worker could potentially make at another job), and another limits a person's ability to collect unemployment payments.

More from the Associated Press:

The bills would further limit the ability of a person who was fired for cause or who may have left a job voluntarily from collecting jobless benefits.

They would require some unemployed workers to take jobs after 10 weeks of benefits even if the jobs are outside the unemployed worker's previous experience or pay lower wages.

The measures also would push injured workers to seek some type of employment once they're able.

Democrats say the new laws could unfairly keep hurt or jobless workers from getting benefits. Republicans say they'll cut down on fraud.

Michigan Radio's Rick Pluta reports:

The measures will also allow Michigan to sell bonds to repay unemployment loans to the federal government. Snyder says those loans cost taxpayers almost $40 million in interest this year, and businesses $137 million in penalties.

“By doing this financing we can essentially get out of the penalties and we can lower our interest costs and be successful and give our employers a better path to create jobs, which I want to emphasize is the real point behind this,” said Snyder.

Michigan's unemployment rate fell by eight-tenths of a percentage point last month to 9.8 percent. This is the first time since November of 2008 that Michigan's jobless rate has dropped below 10 percent. The national November unemployment rate is 8.6 percent.

The jobless rate fell by eight-tenths of a percentage point in November. That’s a sharp drop and much of it was due to new hiring. But retail was the only sector to show significant growth from month to month and much of the decline is also due to about 19,000 fewer people in the workforce competing for available jobs. All told, there are still about 457,000 people in Michigan without jobs and looking for work.

At 9.8 percent, the state’s unemployment rate is still above the national rate.

When people who have quit looking are counted, along with part-time workers who’d like to be full-time, Michigan’s rate of unemployment and under-employment is 18.8 percent. 

The Grand Rapids economy grew faster than predicted this year and economic forecasters say growth will continue into 2012.

George Erickcek is an economist at the Upjohn Institute for employment research. He says the Grand Rapids economy did grow in 2011, but only by two-percent. (His full presentation is linked here.)

“There’s been no talk of a double dip for many, many months. But the growth…is disappointing. It’s not the growth we want,” Erickcek told a group of business leaders assembled Wednesday.

He says a recovering auto industry and gains in advanced manufacturing are the main reasons Grand Rapids’ economy has grown.

In fact, Erickcek says Grand Rapids is technically over the recession in terms of employment numbers.

Michigan Congressman Sander Levin says Congress should cancel its winter recess if members can’t reach a deal to extend unemployment benefits.

Right now, the federal government supplements state unemployment programs to offer assistance for the long-term unemployed--up to 53 weeks of emergency benefits since the country slid into recession in 2008.

But those benefits will lapse January 1 if Congress doesn’t act this month.