The jobless rate for December was 3.7%, the same as November, but a decline from 4% in December 1999, according to the Department of Economic Security. The average unemployment rate in the state for 2000 was 3.8%.

But those positive numbers belie a slowdown that shows up in the figures for the creation of new jobs, says Dan Anderson, a research administrator for the department. The number of new jobs created is a better barometer of the overall health of the economy, he says.

In December, the state's non-farm businesses added 16,200 jobs, down from 16,300 in November and well off from just a few months ago. In October, 19,2000 jobs were added and in September 37,000 jobs were created.

"We're still growing, but we are not growing as quickly now as we were," he says. "We are growing much faster than the rest of the nation and just about every other state, but the slowdown we have been talking about is clearly happening."

The economic cooling is showing up in the construction industry, which reduced its rolls by 300 jobs in December, the second month with a loss, Anderson says. A related industry, sand and gravel mining, also lost 100 jobs in the last month of the year.

Anderson anticipates that Arizona's unemployment rate will rise in 2001.

"We won't be creating as many jobs as the number of people moving here, so it will take longer for them to find work," he says. "I don't think the economy will slow down as much as people expect, but it is clearly slowing."

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