Fort Smith metro jobless rate remains high in November

Those Mitsubishi and Oxane jobs can’t get here fast enough.

Fort Smith’s metro unemployment rate in November was 7.7%, a slight improvement over the 7.8% in October. Unfortunately, the October rate was a dramatic jump that followed three consecutive months of declines or no change, the Fort Smith metro unemployment rate in October jumped to 7.8% from the September rate of 7%.

(Mitsubishi Power Systems Americas announced Oct. 16 that it will build a $100 million wind turbine manufacturing plant on 90 acres at Fort Chaffee that will employ up to 400 once fully operational in late 2011 or early 2012. Houston-based Oxane Materials announced Dec. 28 it will locate in Van Buren its first manufacturing plant to produce a new proppant developed with nanotechnology developed by Rice University. Oxane employment should reach 50 by the summer of 2010, and possibly up to 300 by 2014.)

Arkansas’ seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose fell from 7.6% in October to 7.4% in November. The U.S. jobless rate was 10% in November, down from the 10.2% in October and significantly higher than the 6.8% in November 2008.

Fort Smith’s regional jobless rate is considerably higher than the 5.1% unemployment rate of November 2008, according to information released Tuesday morning (Jan. 5) by the U.S. Department of Labor. Also, the number of unemployed in the Fort Smith area was 10,848 in November, up 52.1% over the 7,130 unemployed in November 2008.

The monthly Fort Smith metro unemployment rates for 2009 are:
October 2009: 7.8%
September 2009: 7%
August 2009: 7.1%
July 2009: 7.7%
June 2009: 7.8%
May 2009: 7.5%
April 2009: 7.1%
March 2009: 7.3%
Feb. 2009: 7.7%
Jan. 2009: 7.7%

November saw a small gain in the number of Fort Smith area manufacturing jobs (22,600) compared to October (22,500). The region has lost 1,500 manufacturing jobs between November 2008 and November 2009, and has lost 28% of its manufacturing jobs since January 2000.

Other Fort Smith metro job sectors seeing November gains in employment were mining, logging and construction (8,800 jobs, compared to 8,700 in October), trade, transportation and utilities (25,300 jobs, compared to 25,00 in October) and government (19,500 jobs, compared to 19,400 in October).

FORT SMITH METRO AREA HISTORY
Past annual average unemployment rates
2008: 4.8%
2007: 5.3%
2006: 4.9%
2005: 4.5%
2004: 5.2%
2003: 5.5%
2002: 5%
2001: 4.2%
2000: 3.7%

ARKANSAS METRO AREAS
Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers
November 2009: 5.3%
October 2009: 5.3%
November 2008: 4%

Hot Springs
November 2009: 6.8%
October 2009: 6.7%
November 2008: 5.4%

Jonesboro
November 2009: 6.3%
October 2009: 6.3%
November 2008: 4.6%

Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway
November 2009: 5.9%
October 2009: 5.9%
November 2008: 4.4%

Memphis-West Memphis
November 2009: 9.8%
October 2009: 9.9%
November 2008: 6.9%

Pine Bluff
November 2009: 8.9%
October 2009: 8.8%
November 2008: 7.3%

Texarkana
November 2009: 6.3%
October 2009: 6.6%
November 2008: 4.9%