For the fourth straight month, Wyoming’s unemployment rate remains at four point nine percent. University of Wyoming Economist Anne Alexander says the news is surprising when you consider low natural gas prices and concerns about the coal industry.
“Things having to do with regulations coming on-line about coal, things having to do with the price of natural gas, I think what’s interesting is that either people are just kind of waiting and not sort of laying off a lot of people, a lot of people aren’t leaving and a lot of people aren’t rushing in either.”
But Alexander says companies are taking a wait-and-see attitude as the marketplace sorts itself out. She predicts that the stability will likely continue into the summer.
“Unless something sort of really big externally changes, that just sort of comes in and wallops us, or alternatively completely shakes up the energy industry and makes us have another sort of boom out of nowhere, I don’t see anything on the horizon.”
Alexander adds that efforts to diversify Wyoming’s economy may also be working.