State showing signs of economic recovery

The latest Wyoming Economic Indicators report hints that the state is making a slow but sure recovery from the impacts of the pandemic. Prepared by the Economics Analysis Division, the report shows that unemployment is dropping and the overall economic health of the state is rebounding from a deep low earlier this year.

The report combines four individual economic indicators to create an index that measures the overall health of Wyoming’s economy. These include the monthly unemployment and total non-farm employment rates and monthly sales and use tax collections from the mining sector and lodging.

For the first time this year, the index value dropped below the baseline of 100 after “a huge drop” in April, according to the report.

As of November, however, the index value has climbed back up to 99.9 after increasing every month since May. This is driven largely by improvements in the unemployment rate, which is weighted to be the most important factor in the index.

After reaching 9.6% unemployment across the state in April, unemployment has dropped to a rate of 6.1% in November, according to the report. This is still higher than the unemployment rate a year ago, which the report records at 3.7% in September, 2019.

However, says the report, “These improved unemployment rates over the last several months are a bright sign that the recovery from the COVID-19 business shutdowns is continuing.”

Total nonfarm payroll jobs in Wyoming are also once again on the rise, having climbed by 3400 since August and showing increases for five consecutive months. However, the total of 273,900 recorded in September is still 16,100 lower than one year ago.

Sales and use tax collections are still lower than usual, however. Collections from the mining sector in September were $7.9 million below those collected a year ago, while lodging tax has seen seven consecutive months of year-over-year declines.

“These decreases in collections from lodging are not surprising because of the stay-at-home orders at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and lack of travel due to virus concerns,” says the report.