With the replacement of the old census long form with the American Community Survey, we now get annual updates on the economic profile of Cochise County.

Cochise County’s labor force in 2009 consisted of 55,531 people who were employed or actively seeking work, up 8.9 percent from 50,973 in 2000. The 2009 labor force included an estimated 5,271 people in the armed forces.

Labor force participation in Cochise County in 2009 was 54.9 percent, down from 56.4 percent in 2000. The shift is likely the result of the large number of retirees who’ve relocated to the area in recent years. Another factor is discouraged workers who give up looking for a job after failing to find one.

The largest share of workers countywide were employed in management, professional, and related occupations. These totaled 37.4 percent of all jobs in 2009, up from 30.2 percent in 2000. This also represents the largest shift in the composition of the workforce as workers moved from other occupations into management, professional, and related jobs.

The second largest share of jobs was sales and office occupations at 26.5 percent, down from 27.1 percent. The third was service occupations at 21.7 percent, up slightly from 21.3 percent.

About 7.6 percent of countywide workers were employed in construction, extraction, maintenance, and repair occupations in 2009, down from 10.7 percent in 2000. Six percent of Cochise County workers were employed in production, transportation, and material moving occupations, down from 9.4 percent. Farming, fishing, and forestry occupations accounted for 0.8 percent of all jobs countywide, down from 1.3 percent.

The industry grouping that employed the largest share of workers in Cochise County in 2009 was educational services, health care, and social assistance, which employed 23.2 percent of countywide workers in 2009, up from 20.3 percent in 2000. The second largest was professional, scientific, management, administrative, and waste management services, which employed 14.5 percent of the county’s workers, up from 7.9 percent.

The third largest industry in Cochise County in 2009 was retail trade, which employed 13.2 percent of all workers, down from 14.7 percent in 2000. Fourth was public administration at 12.6 percent, down from 14.3 percent. Other industries each employed fewer than 10 percent of the county’s workers.

The commuting time for those traveling to work in 2009 was 19.5 minutes, compared to 19.8 minutes in 2000.

In 2009, private wage and salary workers accounted for 66.8 percent of the countywide workforce, up from 62.9 percent in 2000. Government workers accounted for 25.7 percent, down from 28.2 percent. Self-employed workers accounted for 7.2 percent of the workforce, down from 8.5 percent, and unpaid family workers dipped from 0.4 to 0.2 percent.

The median household income countywide in 2009 was $45,706, up 42.4 percent from $32,105 in 1999. Inflation during this period was 28.8 percent, suggesting an increase in the purchasing power of the county’s median income of 13.6 percent.

The per capita income (total income divided by population) in Cochise County was $22,746 in 2009, up 42.3 percent over the preceding decade from $15,988, for a 13.5 percent increase in per capita purchasing power.

In 2009, 36.6 percent of Cochise County households received Social Security income, up from 31.9 percent in 1999. The proportion of households receiving retirement income in 2009 was 29.6 percent, up from 26.5 percent.

Those receiving public assistance cash income in 2009 totaled 2.5 percent of all households, down from 4.1 percent in 1999. Food stamps went to 14.3 percent of Cochise County households in 2009—this figure wasn’t reported in 1999.

The earnings of female fulltime, year-round workers in 2009 were 74.9 percent that of males, up from 72.9 percent in 1999.

In 2009, 10.9 percent of Cochise County families lived below the poverty line, down from 13.5 percent in 1999. Fifteen percent of families with children lived in poverty, down from 21.6 percent. For families with small children (under 5 years old), 23.8 percent lived below the poverty line, down from 25.3 percent.

Thirty-one percent of families led by single moms lived below the poverty line in 2009, down from 47.2 percent a decade earlier.

In 2009, 9.9 percent of Cochise County residents were without health insurance coverage. For children under 18 years of age, 6.3 percent lacked coverage. These figures weren’t reported in past years.

Robert Carreira, Ph.D. is director of the Center for Economic Research at Cochise College. If you have any questions on the economy, please contact the CER at (520) 515-5486 or by email at cer@cochise.edu. Check out the CER’s website at www.cochise.edu/cer