Teton County’s unemployment rate dropped from December to January, but only because the labor force decreased.

Unemployment slid to 8.1 percent in January, down from 8.8 percent in December, according to statistics from the Wyoming Department of Employment Research and Planning.

The percentage decrease looks better than the actual jobs numbers. The number of employed workers actually fell by 54 from December to January. Unemployment dropped because the county work force constricted by a larger number, 148.

The county labor force numbered 12,857 for the last month of 2009, but that number fell to 12,709 in January, a decline of 1.2 percent.

The number of people who were employed dropped from 11,729 to 11,675 for the same time frame, down 0.5 percent.

In January 2009, unemployment sat at 5.9 percent, with a labor force of 13,272 and 12,490 employed. In 12 months, the labor force lost 563 workers, or 4.2 percent, and the number of people employed dropped 815, or 6.5 percent.

The drop in employed workers correlates with the continuing trend of a shrinking county wage pool.

From the second quarter of 2008 to the second quarter of 2009, county wages decreased $19 million, said David Bullard, senior economist with the Department of Employment.

If mean wages are applied to the decrease in the number of employed workers during the past 12 months in the county, the decline in wages appears to be getting worse.

The state reports that the mean wage for Teton County in 2008 — the latest figure available — was $26,175. If that is applied to the decrease of 815 workers from January 2009 to January 2010, that means a loss of almost $1.8 million in monthly wages and more than $21 million annually.

For Wyoming, unemployment sat at 7.6 percent for January, up one-tenth of a percent from the previous month. The Wyoming unemployment rate in January 2009 was 4.4 percent.

National unemployment was 10.6 percent in January, up from 8.5 percent during the same month a year ago.

In neighboring Lincoln County, unemployment hit 11 percent in January, the highest in the state.

In Sublette County, the unemployment rate was 5.8 percent.