In a press release issued by the borough on March 24, borough administration spokesperson Bill Popp said the overall trends in the statistics continue to be positive.
“General unemployment remained steady compared to February of 2005, while the year-to-date unemployment rate showed a modest decrease,” he said, adding that the outlook for the rest of 2006 remained positive.
Mayor John Williams said the peninsula’s economy and workforce continue to “head in the right direction” and higher sales tax revenues showed growth over 2004 numbers that were “reflected in our unemployment statistics.”
He predicted that several large capital projects within the borough slated to begin in 2006 would “provide a solid foundation for continued economic growth for the borough in the coming year.”
Those include the Tesoro low-sulfur diesel project, oil and gas investment by Escopta, Aurora Gas and Chevron, the South Peninsula Hospital expansion, the likely new Wal-Mart in Kenai, and the new Mining & Petroleum Training Service facility project at the Kenai Peninsula College.
According to the Department of Labor, February’s unemployment of 11.6 percent, while high compared to, say, Anchorage’s 6.2 percent, was the same as that in 2005. But when the data for the first two months of the year were taken as a whole, they showed unemployment actually fell by a tenth of a percent compared to the same two-month period last year.
The total number of workers out of work (that is, those willing but not employed) in February 2006 was 2,758, a reduction of 16 people compared to February 2005. The year-to-date average borough unemployment fell by 42 compared to the same period last year.
However, the total labor force in February 2006 — the number of people available for work — did fall by 88 workers from 2005 figures.
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