About 900 more Howard County residents had jobs by the end of 2011 than they did a year before.
There were 36,656 county residents working as of December, the Indiana Department of Workforce Development reported Tuesday.
County employment grew by 917 jobs, or 2.9 percent, during 2011. Economists generally believe healthy job growth after a recession should be about 7 percent per year.
“I’m happy that it’s going in the right direction,” said Kokomo Mayor Greg Goodnight. “Am I satisfied? No.”
The county ended 2011 with 9.3 percent unemployment, which came down from 10.7 percent a year earlier.
Kokomo alone finished the year with 10.7 percent unemployment. The rate was 11.9 percent a year earlier.
Improvement or decline over the next year will heavily rely on issues outside of the Kokomo area, said Jeb Conrad, president and CEO of the Greater Kokomo Economic Development Alliance.
“It’s going to be interesting to see what kind of changes result from the happenings at the legislative level,” he said. “There’s all kinds of things happening down [at the Statehouse] that can have an impact.
“But I am very optimistic about the ... opportunities that continue to flow in right now.”
Economist Michael Hicks shared a similar optimism about, albeit slow, job growth in 2012 after a major pick up in December.
Indiana, which had 9 percent unemployment, was No. 1 in the U.S. in employment growth with 12,000 new jobs. The state’s labor force had its largest increase in 35 years.
While December typically has a lot of employment increases in retail because of Christmas season shopping, more prominent and higher-paying industries such as manufacturing and construction grew by several thousand jobs.
“If we get those numbers sustained, then we’ll be back to full employment in a year and a half,” said Hicks, who is director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University.
“I am always cautious about a single month of data,” he later added.
December’s Drop
While the Kokomo area’s employment situation ended 2011 slightly better than the year before, the job market took a hit between November and December.
The unemployment rate came down to 9.3 percent from 9.9 percent, but the total labor force also shrank.
The number of employed Howard County residents decreased by 291.
And residents listed as unemployed, meaning they did not have jobs but actively looked for work, decreased by 270.
Conrad said the reported drop was confusing because there were no mass layoffs and retail employment picked up during the holidays.
“Usually in December, at the worst case, you get a peak in temporary employment,” he said.
Hicks noted the labor data for counties and cities can be “volatile” when looked at on a monthly basis.
Tipton UP, Miami Down
Howard County’s northern and southern neighbors had similar job declines from November to December, with equally stumped explanations from their economic development officials.
Tipton County ended the year with Indiana’s fourth-highest unemployment rate at 11 percent, which was up from 9.4 percent a month earlier.
Linda Williamson, economic development consultant for Tipton County, said there were no mass layoffs or anything else that would support such a leap.
Although the state estimates the county of about 7,500 workers lost 61 jobs between November and December, 2011’s total job count ended 189 higher than at the end of 2010.
Several companies in 2011 announced expansions and plans to hire over the next few years, Williamson noted.
“They won’t complete all hiring in 2012, but it certainly begins in 2012,” she said.
Miami County had a weaker year as the number of its employed residents dropped by 103.
From November to December, county employment grew by 30. It was enough to knock back the unemployment rate to 10.7 percent, ninth highest in Indiana, from 10.9 percent the month before.
“Through the community, we had companies that down-sized and laid off,” said Jim Tidd, executive director of the Miami County Economic Development Authority. “... About 3,000 people a day commute out of Miami County into Howard County, where the automotive industry has down-sized.”
Miami County, like Tipton County, received promises last year of job creation over the next few years.
Tidd said he expected aircraft service company Dean Baldwin Painting to begin hiring later this year for its eventual commitment of 200 employees.
“There’s some good things on the horizon,” he said. “It’s our goal, of course, not to lose any more. ... Hopefully, we’ll have steady gain in 2012.”
• Daniel Human is the Kokomo Tribune business reporter. He can be reached at 765-454-8570 or at daniel.human@kokomotribune.com.