Unemployment rate remains among state's highest

Sanders County’s unemployment rate currently ranks as the fifth highest in the state. While Montana has seen a drop in unemployment since January of this year, Sanders County sits at a rate of 6.2%. According to Jessica Nelson, Montana Department of Labor and Industry Public Information Officer, this number is slightly higher than the “normal” unemployment rate of around 4%.

“Part of the unemployment rate is due to the slow winter season, which typically has the lowest level of jobs in Montana’s economy,” Nelson said. “Across the full state, there are more jobs than unemployed. The low level of unemployed workers is reflected in the low unemployment rate in Montana of 3.4% (unadjusted).”

Statewide, there are about 15,000 people who are unemployed and looking for work and about 22,000 job openings. Nelson says in Sanders County, there are 325 people who are unemployed and 82 current job openings.

Montana’s unemployment rate ranks fifth lowest in the nation and has dropped to an all-time low of 2.7% below the unemployment rate for the rest of the country which stands at 4%.

“The most common job openings across Montana are software developers, management analysts and marketing managers,” Nelson said. She notes that farm workers, registered nurses and retail workers are also high on the list. “Keep in mind that some jobs, like farm workers, spike during certain times of the year,” she said. “In Sanders County, nursery workers (like greenhouses, not childcare), nursing assistants and retail sales workers are the top job openings. Registered nurses are also fairly high in Sanders County and in the surrounding areas.”

Openings listed at Job Service Thompson Falls range from customer service, hospitality, openings in the food industry and county and city employment opportunities.

The unemployment rate in Sanders County fluctuated during 2020, rising to 13.6% during the height of the pandemic. The following year, numbers decreased slightly when the county saw the unemployment rate drop to 8.2% in January 2021.

“There are more workers working than ever before and more people employed than ever before,” Nelson said. “However, the turnaround from the pandemic recession was quite rapid, with most of the recovery job growth happening in the last nine months. The unemployment rate in Sanders County was much higher last year at 8.2% compared to the 6.1% in January 2022.”

Nelson continued, “overall, the Montana economy is much stronger than before the pandemic.” The Montana Department of Labor and Industry says the number of Montanans employed in January 2022 grew to 539,758, compared to 525,909 in March 2020.