From Brenda Dorsey
I was intrigued by an April 23 Wheeling Intelligencer front page story concerning Wetzel County unemployment, “Jobs Number Finally Rising.” Ihope your staffcan clarify some of the information presented in the article.
I was happy to see the overall reported unemployment numbers for the state have dropped, according to Workforce West Virginia, from 10.9 to 10.1 percent. Northern Panhandle numbers lag behind the statewide average, due to companies like Bayer and Ormet reducing operations, says the story, but overall the Panhandle job situationseems to belooking up. Or is it? How does monthly data compare to yearly data?
Wetzel County’s monthly unemployment figures “dropped more than two points, from 17.4 percent in February (2010) to 15.3 percent in March.” This compares to 12.6 percent a year ago-that’s a significant difference.The article goes on to presentstatistics for Ohio, Brooke, Marshall, Hancock, and Tyler, whose jobless numbers either stayed roughly the same or improved only slightly.
Wetzel’s numbers by far showed the most monthly improvement-over two percent-but the story left several questions unanswered: how many workers actually were rehired or found new jobs? What types of jobs were they-high paying jobs, fast food workers jobs, factory work, oil/gas field work, census jobs? If we showed the most improvement, where are these jobs? The story relates that jobs may be increasing due to warmer weather jobs such as construction. However, the story admits four paragraphs into the article, decline in jobless rates could simply be from workers who no longer seek work through Workforce assistance, and therefore, as the story says, have “given up on getting a job.”
In short then, we don’t really know if there is an actual drop in jobless rates in Wetzel, since we don’t have sufficient detailed information. I am not looking for a dark cloud to obscure the silver lining, but if there truly is an improvement, there should be evidence of it in other data.
Can TheChronicle shed some light on this?
Sincerely,
Brenda Dorsey
Endicott
From Brenda Dorsey
I was intrigued by an April 23 Wheeling Intelligencer front page story concerning Wetzel County unemployment, “Jobs Number Finally Rising.” Ihope your staffcan clarify some of the information presented in the article.
I was happy to see the overall reported unemployment numbers for the state have dropped, according to Workforce West Virginia, from 10.9 to 10.1 percent. Northern Panhandle numbers lag behind the statewide average, due to companies like Bayer and Ormet reducing operations, says the story, but overall the Panhandle job situationseems to belooking up. Or is it? How does monthly data compare to yearly data?
Wetzel County’s monthly unemployment figures “dropped more than two points, from 17.4 percent in February (2010) to 15.3 percent in March.” This compares to 12.6 percent a year ago-that’s a significant difference.The article goes on to presentstatistics for Ohio, Brooke, Marshall, Hancock, and Tyler, whose jobless numbers either stayed roughly the same or improved only slightly.
Wetzel’s numbers by far showed the most monthly improvement-over two percent-but the story left several questions unanswered: how many workers actually were rehired or found new jobs? What types of jobs were they-high paying jobs, fast food workers jobs, factory work, oil/gas field work, census jobs? If we showed the most improvement, where are these jobs? The story relates that jobs may be increasing due to warmer weather jobs such as construction. However, the story admits four paragraphs into the article, decline in jobless rates could simply be from workers who no longer seek work through Workforce assistance, and therefore, as the story says, have “given up on getting a job.”
In short then, we don’t really know if there is an actual drop in jobless rates in Wetzel, since we don’t have sufficient detailed information. I am not looking for a dark cloud to obscure the silver lining, but if there truly is an improvement, there should be evidence of it in other data. Can TheChronicle shed some light on this?
Sincerely,
Brenda Dorsey
Endicott