Local Jobs
and Payroll in Wyoming:
Sharp Slowdown in Job Growth in Third Quarter 2012
The purpose of this article is to illustrate and describe employment and payroll changes between third quarter 2011 and third quarter 2012. These economic changes help gauge the overall strength of Wyoming’s economy and identify the fastest and slowest growing sectors and geographic areas.
Total unemployment insurance (UI) covered payroll increased by $2.7 million (0.1%) in third quarter 2012. Employment rose by 1,649 jobs (0.6%) and average weekly wage decreased by $4 (-0.5%). In third quarter, total wages and average weekly wage grew at a much slower pace than their five year averages (Table 1). In terms of dollars, UI covered payroll represents approximately 91.5% of all wage and salary disbursements and 43.8% of personal income in the state (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, 2013). Analysts have noted that “minerals related employment is one of the key predictors of sales and use tax revenue” in Wyoming (CREG 2010).
Despite the recent growth, overall employment remains approximately 10,000 jobs (3.4%) below its third quarter 2008 level. In other words, the state has yet to recoup all the job losses of 2009 and 2010.
The covered payroll and employment data in this article are tabulated by place of work, in contrast to the labor force estimates which are a measure of employed and unemployed persons by place of residence. Also, the employment data presented in this article represent a count of jobs, not persons. When individuals work more than one job, each job is counted separately. Finally, job growth (or decline) is stated in terms of net change. The Quarterly Turnover Statistics by Industry table presents alternative measures of job gains and losses using the same data sources and calculated to describe the components of change.
Figure 1 shows Wyoming wage & salary employment by covered/non-covered status. Approximately 92% of wage & salary jobs in the state are covered by state unemployment insurance, while 2.6% of jobs are covered by federal unemployment insurance, and 0.9% are covered by unemployment insurance administered by the railroad retirement board. There are several categories of non-covered jobs, and together they account for approximately 5% of wage & salary jobs in the state. Some examples of non-covered employment include elected officials, students working at educational institutions, employees of churches, and workers at small non-profit organizations.
Job growth slowed sharply from 2.2% in second quarter 2012 to 0.6% in third quarter 2012 (see Table 2). Total payroll growth also fell dramatically in third quarter, decreasing from 4.8% to 0.1% (see figure 2).