Jobs

A new report shows the U.S. has created more than 170,000 clean energy jobs since Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act in August 2022. In the Mountain West, job creation by state is all over the map.

New data shows that the Mountain West region led the nation with $26.5 billion in manufacturing construction spending in 2022, up from only $4.2 billion in 2017. It's an indicator of the significant economic changes afoot across the region.

A new report predicts the Inflation Reduction Act’s climate and energy provisions will create or preserve 1 million U.S. jobs., including tens of thousands in the Mountain West.

Paul Martin, an administrator for the Wyoming Department of Corrections, said it’s challenging for prisons to compete with other jobs that pay more. An advertisement lists the starting salary for a Wyoming corrections officer at about $18 an hour, while a similar job in Nebraska pays at least $22 an hour,

The December unemployment rate in Idaho fell to a record low of 2.4%.

The King Soopers strike is emblematic of a broader labor movement sweeping the country, and parts of the Mountain West, as workers walk out for better pay and benefits or unionize to harness their collective power.

A new Brookings Institution analysis helps fill the data gap, finding that nearly 40% of Native Americans saw cuts in work hours or pay over the last year – higher than all other racial or ethnic groups.

By now, you’ve probably heard the term “she-cession.” It refers to the incredible numbers of women who have lost their jobs during the pandemic—or been forced to drop out of the labor market to take care of children stuck at home. At the same time, many jobs are unfilled and employers are seeing their workers quit en masse. The power dynamic seems to be flipped—at least in some sectors.

The latest jobs report shows the U.S. unemployment rate has barely improved, dropping from 5.4% to 5.2 %. However, here in Idaho, the unemployment rate dropped below 3% for the first time since March of 2020.

There's a lot to get into this week on the Idaho Matters Friday Reporter Roundtable.This week's topics: Idaho's low-performing vaccine rollout, a…