Pinal County unemployment – Experts: Numbers should continue to drop
Rate fell from 8.3 percent to 7.1 percent last year
By Shane Dale | Casa Grande Dispatch
Pinal County saw a significant drop in unemployment last year.
There’s a good chance another dip is coming in 2015.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 6,100 more Pinal County residents were working in December 2014 compared to 12 months earlier. The county’s unemployment rate dropped from 8.3 percent to 7.1 percent during that span.
“This is a pretty significant increase and a positive signal for labor markets,” said Lee McPheters, research professor of economics at the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. “All the labor market statistics point to a slow but steady recovery in employment and declining unemployment rates in Arizona, particularly in metro Phoenix, which now includes Pinal County.”
McPheters said much of that growth is likely a result of Pinal County residents commuting to work at new jobs in Maricopa County.
“If commuters from Pinal County take jobs in the Phoenix area, the unemployment rate in Pinal County goes down because that is how the survey works. It is based on where the employed and unemployed reside,” he said. “But besides just the statistics, the economies of Arizona, Phoenix and neighboring Pinal County are all in a positive growth mode.”
