State shows job growth in some sectors-WEB ONLY

Indiana’s deepening recession failed to halt government hiring and growth in the education and health service sectors in January even as the state’s factories continued jettisoning jobs, new federal statistics show.

A state-by-state unemployment report released yesterday by the U.S. Labor Department shows that Indiana lost about 12,400 jobs in January, when its unemployment rate rose to 9.2 percent – the highest level in a quarter-century.

About 90 percent of those lost jobs, or 11,100, hit the state’s manufacturers as the recession continued to spread beyond recreational vehicle manufacturers and the real estate industry, said Carol Rogers, deputy director of the Indiana Business Research Center.

“We’re seeing the affects of the downturn in almost all categories,” she said. “It’s a gloomy picture for nearly all industries.”

Despite those lost manufacturing jobs, the report showed some good news with slight job growth in government, heavy construction and leisure and hospitality, among others.

The most significant hiring came in Indiana’s government offices, which hired about 5,200 new workers in January at the federal, state and local levels.

Rogers said nearly all of those new jobs are at the federal level. Some of them are new federal hires to help deal with the growing number of unemployed, but she said the largest portion was temporary workers hired to help collect data for the 2010 U.S. census.

“Even though that won’t be conducted until next spring, they’re hiring now. They’re going to wind up hiring 300,000 to 400,000 people nationwide for the census,” Rogers said.

The government sector also includes publicly funded colleges and universities, which typically benefit during recessions as laid-off workers return to school in hopes that additional education will help them land a job in a new field, Rogers said.

The state’s aging baby boomer population ensured a slight increase in hiring at hospitals, doctor and dentist offices and nursing homes, the numbers show.
Although the nation’s housing market remains stagnant, Indiana’s wide-ranging construction industry added about 2,300 jobs in January.

Rogers said those jobs appear to have come mainly from the state’s ongoing highway construction projects that are being paid for by some of the $3.8 billion the state received from leasing the Indiana Toll Road to a private operator.

Marc Lotter, a spokesman for the Department of Workforce Development, said heavy construction and civil engineering jobs such as highway and bridge construction accounted for nearly all of January’s construction sector growth.

While those jobs grew in January, he said losses continued in the residential, industrial and commercial construction fields.

The state’s leisure and hospitality arena also saw slight job growth in January as people continued to seek budget trips such as visits to the state’s casinos, Rogers said.

Curt Brantingham, a spokesman for the Indiana Office of Tourism Development, said people are helping the state’s tourism industry by being frugal and looking for deals on day trips to in-state entertainment venues.

“That’s why we’re seeing positive numbers for Indiana. There appears to be a lot of confidence in the industry that things are still going well,” he said.