Guam’s unemployment rates, according to the Governor, are at a new low.
Here’s PNC’s Damen Michael with the story.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Department of Labor, the unemployment rate for June of this year is at 4.8%.
This marks a decrease of 0.3% from the march 2021 figure of 5.1% and a 6.6% reduction from the last year’s rate of 11.4%. This data is also 14.6 points below the peak of the pandemic rate in December 2020 of 19.4%
In an interview with PNC, Director of the Department of Labor Dave Dell’isola gave details on what the data provides the island with,
Dell’isola said, “as you can see from the employment and the unemployment report all the numbers are trending in the correct direction. employment is up, jobs are up, hours worked are up, pay is up and unemployment is down and trending down and the horizon looks even better. ”
One of the biggest highlights of the employment situation data is a side-by-side comparison from March 2021 to June 2022 of the total unemployed. The data shows that in March 2021 the total amount of unemployed was 12,660 while in June 2022 that amount decreased by 9,280 to 3,380.
Statistically, There were 123,980 total civilians surveyed who are 16 years of age and over, and out of the total surveyed 50,670 opted that they did not want a job during the survey.
Gary Hiles, Chief Economist for the Bureau of Labor Statistics referenced that from this amount that there are 3 categories of people that generally are out of the labor force in this statistic.
Hiles said, ” Always that includes retires that’s a lot of people on Guam who are over 65 ”
He added, ” also the second category who are generally out of the labor force are those who are homemakers taking care of people at home so they choose not to work, and then the 3rd category is the labor force starts at age 16 and above so they are a lot of 16 to 20 years olds that are still in school and wont to devote full time to their studies. ”
Director Delli’sola said that with things opening up, Guam recovering at a fast rate, and tourism bounces back quickly. Guam is positioned perfectly for recovery and surviving the worst part that the pandemic has given us.
He added that he thinks slow steady growth is good because it gets our workforce up by getting them trained and ready to prepare.
Reporting for the Pacific News Centre
I’m Damen Michael
