Expert: Through eye of history, Montana joblessness not so bad

Montana's March unemployment rate of 7.1 percent was the highest monthly rate in the state in almost 23 years, but those levels are something Montana has dealt with before, said Larry Swanson, an economist with the Center for the Rocky Mountain West in Missoula.

"Historically, Montana typically had an unemployment rate that was higher than the national rate until about 1991," Swanson said.

In the early 1990s, Montana was just coming off a rough economic time, with the farm crisis, booms and bust in the oil and gas industry, a downturn in wood products and the savings and loan crisis.

"Then, in the 1990s, income and employment took off in Montana, our unemployment rate went down and we had historically low rates just three and four years ago," Swanson said. "But now the whole psychology is different when our unemployment rate hit 7 percent. The last time we had these kinds of unemployment rates, we were coming off of the difficulties of the 1980s. Now we are coming off historically low unemployment rates."

The historically low unemployment rates of just a few years ago helped insulate Montana from the full brunt of the recession, Swanson said.

"We still have a lower unemployment rate than much of the rest of the country," Swanson said. "While it is unpleasant here, it is not as unpleasant as it is in many other areas."

As the U.S. economy grows, which it is now, personal income will see some growth, as will the gross domestic product, Swanson said.

"Unemployment will come down begrudgingly," he said. "In the fall, it will feel as if the slowdown is behind us as the economy begins to expand. We still have about half of the stimulus money to spend on projects."

One part of the Montana economy Swanson doesn't expect to recover to its prior-recession levels is construction.

"I don't think we'll get back to the high levels on construction that we were at three and fours years ago," he said. "I expect it to be at about 60 percent of those levels, and the rest of the economy will have to take up the slack."