LONDON: Pine Bluff’s unemployment numbers rose by nearly 1 percent from April to May, according to data from the Arkansas Department of Workforce Services. The unemployment rate for Pine Bluff in May — the most recent statistics available — sat at 6.1 percent, up from 5.4 percent in April.
This gives Pine Bluff the second highest unemployment rate in the state, behind Blytheville in northeast Arkansas, which sits at 7.4 percent. The state’s lowest unemployment rate for May was in the northwest Arkansas city of Rogers, which reported a jobless rate of just 2.6 percent. Jefferson County’s unemployment rate sat at 5.4 percent for May, up from 4.8 percent in April.
Lou Ann Nisbett, president and chief executive officer of the Economic Development Alliance for Jefferson County, said that despite the rise in unemployment, the city, county and region are making strides. “Over the years, we have seen unemployment as high or above 10 percent” Nisbett said. “I am just happy to see it going down and staying down below that. And you have to look at Pine Bluff as a regional whole, not just the city. We are the regional hub of southeast Arkansas.”
Nisbett pointed to several ongoing industrial projects that are expected to bring in jobs, including Highland Pellets. During the period between Highland’s initial announcement of the plant in 2014 and the recent restart of activity on the site, projected capital expenditure for the project has reportedly grown significantly more than the original $130 million estimate.
Scores of construction workers will be on-site for the next 20 months, with each modular production line becoming operational during the course of 2017. About 68 full-time permanent workers will be hired as the plant ramps up to full production. Company officials also estimate that an additional 258 indirect jobs will be created regionally in the transport and forest industries. Randy Lowell of White Hall said he hopes to snag one of the jobs at Highland. He has been unemployed for six months after being laid off from a company in Little Rock. Lowell said it’s been tough finding work.
“Right now, I am mowing yards,” Lowell said. “But I need more money, and I want to work full time. There are a lot of us out here right now without jobs, but we are hopeful. You have to hope and pray that something will come along.” Meanwhile, the state saw a decline in unemployment, dropping 0.1 percent to an all-time low of 3.8 percent. Over the past 12 months, the unemployment rate has fallen 1.6% — the second-largest decline in the country, next to Tennessee’s 1.7 percent.
“The statistics underlying the falling unemployment rate were less dramatic than earlier in the year,” according to an article published by the Arkansas Economist, a website for the Institute for Economic Advancement at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. “The number of unemployed declined by 1,027 and the number employed increased by 1,073. As a result, the size of the labor force remained approximately unchanged. This stands in contrast to the first three months of the year, when employment and labor force growth exceeded 10,000 per month.”