Courtney Crauthers
EDMOND — Oklahoma’s unemployment rate continues to increase, but local experts believe the end of the recession could occur soon. They predict, however, that unemployment will continue to increase before the labor market sees a turnaround.
John Carpenter, Oklahoma Employment Security Commission spokesman, said Oklahoma’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate increased from 5.9 percent in March to 6.2 percent in April. The commission made 52,186 initial payments for unemployment benefits, which totaled $17.4 million, just the last week of May. Carpenter said last month’s weekly average of initial claims was 52,186.
“We’ve been steadily setting records every week for the number paid and the amount paid,” he said. “The labor market lags behind the rest of the economy. Even when the recession turns around, it’s going to be a while before we see it in the labor market.”
The number of people employed in Oklahoma dropped by 1.1 percent, or 17,960, between April 2008 and April 2009. Unemployment increased by 80.8 percent during that time.
“This past May, our economy lost 345,000 jobs, bringing the total number of jobs lost since this recession began to six million,” said U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis in a statement. “The overall unemployment rate increased to 9.4 percent.”
Solis stated the department has moved aggressively to implement the Recovery Act by providing nearly $3 billion in formula grants to states and local governments for employment and training activities directed to adults, youth and dislocated workers.
Lynn Gray, OESC chief economist, said labor markets are very lax during a recession, but they do turn around.
“It wasn’t long ago where employees had the advantage and employers were bidding for their work. We see this type of cycle continually,” he said. “My guess is that we will probably see growth in the gross domestic product by the third quarter of this year, which means the trough of the recession will occur sometime this summer.”
Gray said he thinks the worst is behind us in terms of GDP declines. He said GDP for the fourth quarter of 2008 was down by 6.3 percent and down by about 5.7 percent for the first quarter of 2009. Gray said while the second quarter still is wrapping they expect the GDP to be down by 1.4 percent.
He said the last six-month period that was this bad in terms of GDP was in 1958.
“The gross domestic product is likely to grow next quarter,” Gray said. “We have seen both nationally and in Oklahoma a decline in initial unemployment claims. Now the levels are still high.
“There’s growing evidence that we’re past the peak in the number of people filing claims. We still have an increasing number of unemployed but there is a glimmer of hope that things are beginning to change.”
Principal Technologies, an Oklahoma City staffing and government contracting business for the accounting, administration, engineering and information technologies industries, recently conducted an employment survey of about 500 Oklahoma City companies in a variety of job fields.
Bobbi Bailey, vice president, said while businesses are not necessarily hiring right and left, they did find some positive results.
“Our goal was to get a local grasp on the economy and how it’s affecting the industry in regards of employees and staffing,” she said. “Companies are just kind of sitting tight and making sure they can take care of the people they have.”
Oklahoma City companies are experiencing a hiring freeze and many positions are not being refilled because of attrition. Bailey said most of the companies are not changing benefits or work schedules to accommodate rough economic times. Half of the companies surveyed, however, will not be giving raises in 2009.
Bailey said this means there just aren’t that many job opportunities in the short term.
“Long-term, I think it will change when companies get more comfortable financially and economically,” she said.
According to survey results, the two most popular areas of growth for 2009 were the information technology and administration industries.
