Arizona sees an unexpected gain in construction jobs

PHOENIX — An unexpected gain in construction jobs last month could finally be the harbinger of better economic times for Arizona.

New figures Thursday from the state Department of Administration show employment in that sector in November at 133,300. That’s still only 55 percent of what it was before the recession.

But Doug Walls, research administrator for the agency, pointed out that construction jobs usually decline in November. Yet last month the sector added 1,600 jobs.

And overall construction employment is 6,900 above the same time last year.

“So we’re kind of seeing construction pick up some steam here,” Walls said.

The overall jobless rate for the state dropped a tenth of a point, to 6.0 percent. That’s still a full point higher than the national rate, which remained unchanged last month.

Retail trade employment also increased by 11,600 in November. That’s not surprising as merchants gear up for the Christmas season.

But a closer look turned up some interesting anomalies.

The number of people working in department stores last month was 2.4 percent less than the same time a year earlier. And shops selling clothing and accessories saw a 6.3 percent year-over-year drop in employment.

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Yet overall retail employment is up 2.5 percent from November 2014. The difference, Walls suggested, might be the shift in shopping habits from brick-and-mortar retailers to online.

“I think it is an economy in transition,” he said, rather than any indication that retailers were anticipating a lackluster Christmas season.

Elsewhere in the Arizona economy, most sectors gained jobs from October.

That was not true in the financial sector. Walls said the big losses appear to be in the number of people involved in real estate rentals.

There is another indicator that the Arizona economy is improving.

The official jobless rate measures only the number of people who are not working but say they are looking for employment. But the Bureau of Labor Statistics, on a quarterly basis, also looks at a broader index, which includes not only “discouraged” workers who have stopped looking but also people who want full-time employment but can get only part-time work.

For the most recent quarter, that rate for Arizona was 13.6 percent. That is down two-tenths of a point from the prior quarter.

Thursday’s report also showed one other indication of recovery. On a seasonally adjusted basis, Arizona is just 23,000 jobs shy of the number of people who were working in the state in October 2007.