Covered Employment and Wages for Third Quarter 1998
Source: ES-202 Report Run Date: February 1999 Prepared 3/19/99 by: Nancy Brennan, Economist Text by: David Bullard, Economist

Wyoming's economy produced 1,977 jobs during third quarter 1998 for a growth rate of 0.9 percent (see Table 1). The Services industry produced the most new jobs, adding 1,414 employees or 2.7 percent. Despite job losses in Mining and two of the three government sectors, all industries had healthy gains in total payroll and average weekly wage. The industries with the largest gains in average weekly wage were Agriculture (up $25 or 8.4%), Local Government (up $26 or 6.5%) and Retail Trade (up $16 or 6.3%). The lowest gain in average weekly wage was in Transportation, Communications, & Public Utilities (TCPU) which increased 2.7%; even this rate exceeded inflation for the quarter.

After increasing in second quarter 1998, Mining employment fell during third quarter. When compared with third quarter 1997, Mining employment lost 401 jobs or 2.3 percent (see Table 1). Comparing Table 3) with the 1997 Mining series⁽¹⁾ shows that the job losses started in July (-149 jobs), grew in August (-449 jobs) increased even further in September 1998 (-604 jobs).

Finance, Insurance, & Real Estate (FIRE) had the largest percent increase of all industries (4.7%). While security brokers (SIC⁽²⁾ 62) and insurance agents (SIC 64) had little or no growth, depository institutions (SIC 60), nondepository credit institutions (SIC 61), insurance carriers (SIC 63) and real estate (SIC 65) each added about 100 new jobs.

Table 2 shows that Teton County had the largest number of new jobs in the quarter (533), followed by Campbell (511 jobs) and Laramie Counties (357 jobs). Natrona County, which had the largest number of new jobs in second quarter (735), only had 30 new jobs in third quarter. A large part of this slowdown in growth appears to be associated with job losses in Local Government.

When viewed from a geographic perspective, the largest wage gains were in Teton County (8.1%), Fremont County (7.5%) and Natrona County (6.9%). Two counties had decreases in their average weekly wages for third quarter. Lincoln County, where employment fell 1.4 percent, saw its average weekly wage fall $17 or 3.9 percent. It appears that this drop in employment and earnings is related to job losses in Mining. Hot Springs County's employment fell slightly (down 0.6 percent) and its average weekly wage fell $2 or 0.5 percent.

1 Wyoming Department of Employment, Research & Planning Section, Annual Covered Employment and Wages, 1997, p. 29.

2 Standard Industrial Classification code. Please refer to footnote six of the previous article for more information.

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