Missouri job losses hit manufacturing, construction
The state's unemployment rate rose from 6.5 to 6.6 percent between July and August.
Published Sept. 26, 2008
Missouri is one of 44 states that reported increases in unemployment in one month over the summer, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Between July and August, Missouri's unemployment rate rose from 6.5 to 6.6 percent. Other states suffered greater increases: Georgia had a .3 percent increase and lost 26,200 jobs, and Michigan lost 19,900 jobs.
The losses have been deepest in the manufacturing sector.
"Speaking statewide, looking at employment numbers, there have been decreases in a number of industries," said Bill Niblack of the state Department of Economic Development.
He said automobile manufacturing has been hard hit because of gas prices and a shift to smaller vehicles. Most Missouri plants produce larger vehicles like trucks, sport utility vehicles and vans.
Job loss can also be associated with the nationwide mortgage and housing issues. One of the more affected industries is construction.
"As these problems dragged on, they began to affect and spread to other industries that were not initially hit," Niblack said. "The main exception is that the health care industry has seen an increase."
Thomas Henderson, assistant to the Provost of Economic Development at MU, agrees that employment in the health profession is growing.
The City of Columbia had a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 5.25 percent at the end of July, according to Michael Pakko of the Federal Reserve Bank in St. Louis. In July 2007, the rate was 4.6 percent.
Pakko said rising unemployment in Columbia reflects the entire economy's slowdown.
"The unemployment rate does not cause the economic problem," he said. "It is more of a record of it."
Boone County and neighboring Howard County, which Pakko called the Columbia "metropolitan area," are experiencing less of a rise in unemployment than both St. Louis and Jefferson City.
In fact, Pakko said, payroll employment growth in the area has increased one percent between July 2007 and July 2008.
"Payroll employment growth looks at businesses hiring while the unemployment rate looks at households," he said.
According to the MU Division of Enrollment Management, 85 percent of 2007 MU graduates in the job market were employed. Also, 69 percent of those MU graduates were employed within the state of Missouri and 91 percent of those employed had a job related to the degree they received.
