News Release

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May 3, 2006

Boise State Officials Say Idaho’s Strong Economy Bodes Well For 2006 Graduates

If recent figures compiled by the Career Center at Boise State are any indication of Idaho’s economic health, the university’s Class of 2006 is entering a robust job market — at least statewide and locally.

According to Dick Rapp, associate vice president for student affairs and director of the BSU Career Center, there was a 34 percent increase in the number of employers who conducted on-campus interviews with graduating students between July 2005 and April 2006 compared to July 2004-April 2005.

In addition, during that same time period, there was a 39 percent increase in employment positions listed for Boise State graduates on BroncoJobs, a Web site available only to BSU students registered with the Career Center.

“This follows an immensely successful Career Fair in March attended by 119 employing organizations,” said Rapp. “Employer interest exceeded the available facilities and we had to turn away about a dozen [recruiters] who were interested in attending.

“Also, what is really exciting to us, we still had employers doing follow-up interviews with our students 2 1/2 days after the Career Fair. They were using every facility we had available for interview space.”

The statistics from the Career Center come on the heels of the latest employment figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which said that Idaho was the third fastest growing state in the nation in terms of the annual percentage change in the state’s employment from March 2005 to March 2006 with an increase of 4.9 percent. According to the report, only Nevada and Arizona fared better than Idaho in job growth.

“These numbers tell me two things,” said Rapp. “First the local economy is doing well; local employers are increasing their staffs and are doing some serious hiring. Second, Boise State is a really important resource for employers, and not just local employers. We had a number of employers come here from outside the area. Furthermore, there are job opportunities across the board. There are still ‘hot’ areas like construction management, engineering, accounting and health care, but there are excellent opportunities for students majoring in other areas. We haven’t seen that in the last four or five years. Boise State is putting quality graduates in the workplace and students from all disciplines are benefiting.”

Don Holley, a Boise State economics professor, also sees ample job opportunities for the Class of ’06. “The strong job market for BSU graduates is a reflection of the strong national market and a strong regional market,” he said. “The national market has shown three to four years of growth but there are signs that the national economy is slowing. As strong as the U.S. economy looks right now, there is a good chance that it will be not be as strong a year from now. The regional economy — both in the Intermountain West and in Idaho — is one of the fastest growing in the country. While the U.S. economy may slow in the coming months, we —both the Intermountain West and Idaho — will probably not slow as much. Southwestern Idaho continues to grow, but the fastest growth rates are in the Magic Valley and Idaho Falls-Rexburg.”

According to Holley, the fastest growing occupations are in network systems and data communications, computer software engineering, physical therapy, occupational therapy, physician assistant, medical science research and postsecondary teaching. Some of the slowest growing jobs are mining and geological engineering, mathematicians, vocational education teaching, computer programming and credit analysis.

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Media Contact: Bob Evancho, University Communications, (208) 426-1643, bevanch@boisestate.edu

Boise State University is the largest institution of higher education in Idaho with about 18,600 students and 2,200 faculty and staff. More than 190 undergraduate, graduate, doctoral and technical degrees are offered within eight colleges. A metropolitan university located in the capital city, Boise State is committed to life-enhancing research, teaching excellence and public service.

 

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Last reviewed on Wednesday, January 03, 2007