The struggling home-building market and the ninth consecutive month of job losses in the manufacturing sector raised the ranks of the unemployed in April by 800 people to just over 23,000, according to the Labor Department's monthly report.
Nationwide, the employment rate fell to 5 percent, as employers slashed payroll at slower than expected pace, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
In Idaho, state officials said the employment problem in April was most obvious in the construction sector, where fewer jobs were created during a month when the industry historically gears up for its prime building season.
Department of Labor spokesman Bob Fick said only 1,700 construction jobs were created in April, or a month-over-month increase of 3.7 percent. Over the last five years, however, the spike in construction jobs between March and April has averaged 5.8 percent, he added.
"We should be adding a potful of people," Fick said. "We're creating far fewer jobs than we would be if the economy was rolling along like it was in 2006."
There are currently about 4,000 fewer construction jobs than a year ago, he said, and manufacturing has shed about 5,000 jobs since last August.
April marked the first time in five years that fewer people were working in Idaho than in the same month the previous year. Total employment in the state stood at 730,100 -- 1,400 fewer than for the same period a year ago.
The Treasure Valley saw a 0.2 of a percentage point increase in unemployment, to 3.2 percent -- 0.6 percentage point higher than a year ago.
Construction nationwide lost 61,000 jobs. In a note to investors, Nigel Gault, chief economist for forecaster Global Insight, warned that with construction and manufacturing employment "still declining sharply, hours worked down and part-time employment up, this report can't be taken as a signal that the economy is out of the recession woods."
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