For the first time since before the COVID-19 pandemic began, the number of Oklahomans remaining on unemployment benefits dipped below 17,000.
The steady drop in jobless workers coincided with the Oklahoma's latest unemployment rate of 3%, a figure not seen in the state since December 2019.
These benchmarks correlate with another dataset seeing a continued decline over the past month: COVID cases. According to the Oklahoma State Department of Health, the number of cases fell by 19% compared to last week.
Nearly 2 million Oklahomans have been fully vaccinated, however, which is only about 60% of the eligible population.
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“Oklahoma is continuing to see economic growth and recovery with the unemployment rate at pre-pandemic levels and more than 13,000 jobs added in the month of September,” said Shelley Zumwalt, executive director of the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission.
It's also been four months since the state terminated extended benefits that were created to address pandemic-related unemployment. Lawsuits that challenged the state's withdrawal made it to the Oklahoma Supreme Court, which has yet to issue a ruling.
Without those extended benefits, the goal was to push people back into the workforce. For the most part, it's worked. According to an analysis of economic data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, the labor force participation rate is nearly back to pre-pandemic levels.
Oklahoma, however, has a lower percentage of workforce participants than the national average.
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"In Oklahoma, the primary deterrents to applying for work over the past year have been family responsibilities, inability to find work, and ill-health or disability," wrote Chad Wilkerson, The Fed's Oklahoma branch executive. "In each case, the share of Oklahomans reporting these reasons was higher than in the nation."
A survey commissioned by the Kansas City Fed shows employers are taking steps to attract more workers back into the market. For the first time since at least 2014, at least three out of four of manufacturing and service industry businesses reported having to raise wages.
"Survey data also show that some additional Oklahomans who are not in the labor force want jobs and are facing challenges that keep them from looking for work, such as family responsibilities or health issues," Wilkerson wrote." Addressing these and other long-term labor force participation trends in Oklahoma may require creative training opportunities and policy approaches in addition to traditional recruitment efforts."
Read more on The Oklahoman.
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