With Labor Day upon us, lets look at some numbers to help us assess the health of our economy and the jobs it provides those who call Kansas home.
1,430,121
Thats the number of people employed in Kansas in July 2019. As summer comes to an end, the state has shown gains in non-farm jobs over the last year.
Those working in agriculture, however, continue to battle problems created by nature and Washington. Tough times in farming have left overall employment down slightly. However, the number of non-farm jobs in the state increased by about 14,000 since July 2018.
1,478,906
This is a worrisome number for Kansas. Its the size of the states labor pool.
The labor pool includes everyone in Kansas who works or wants to work. Before the recession hit more than a decade ago, the labor pool was well over 1.5 million people. It started to shrink in 2009 and never really recovered.
Workers have moved out of state, retired early or stopped working for other reasons. Younger adults arent staying in Kansas or moving here in big enough numbers to make up the losses.
There have been a few upward blips in the size of Kansas labor pool, but the July figure was more than 2,800 smaller than the July 2018 figure.
Nationally the size of the labor force has been growing since 2010. In Kansas, it has been shrinking.
4.2 percent
As of June, that was the annual increase in the average hourly wage in Kansas.
Hourly wages had seen little change for most Kansans through several years, but starting about June 2018, the numbers started climbing, likely evidence that many employers are competing for a dwindling number of workers.
This was one of the few areas in which Kansas out-performed the national average. From June 2018 to June 2019, the federal hourly wage increase was 1.2 percent. Taken over a two-year period the federal and state numbers increased about the same percentage. But the federal wage is still slightly higher, $27.89 an hour, compared to $25.29 in Kansas.
$137 billion
Thats the estimated figure from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for U.S. agricultural exports this fiscal year.
But well be lucky to hit that number. The estimate was made in May, before the latest round of tariffs and retaliatory measures were announced by President Donald Trump and China, one of U.S. farmers bigger markets.
If we do hit the $137 billion figure, that will be a decrease of $6.3 billion from 2018. And the 2018 figure was $9 billion less than the 2014 total of $152.3 billion.
Not only do farmers lose foreign markets during a trade war, but the uncertainty regarding our trade policy and surpluses of grain and other products drive farm commodity prices down.
