Washington state’s unemployment rate crept up slightly in September to 5.7 percent, compared to 5.6 percent in August, according to the new monthly employment report the Employment Security Department issued Wednesday.
The increase was attributed to a loss of 600 nonfarm jobs in the state that month, with the private sector dropping 2,600 jobs while the public sector gained 2,000, according to preliminary seasonally adjusted figures contained in the report.
Those figures tend to change as the estimates solidify – an estimate of 1,500 jobs lost in August has been revised to show an increase of 3,700 new jobs, the report says.
Year-over-year, Washington’s economy showed continued improvement from a 6.9 percent unemployment rate in September 2013 to 5.7 percent last month. However, it still has yet to catch up to the pre-recession rate of 4.6 percent in February 2008, according to the report.
Paul Turek, a labor economist with the Employment Security Department, said that despite a slow September, the strong year-over-year employment gains show Washington’s economy is heading in the right direction. The state has averaged 6,500 jobs created per month this year – the best mark since pre-recession 2005 – and recovered the total number of jobs lost from the recession earlier this year.
“I think the outlook is a good one,” Turek said. “We keep chipping the way.”
Turek said the department couldn’t break down gains in part-time compared to full-time employment, or estimate September’s civilian labor force participation rate, which shows the total work force – employees and job-seekers.
Washington’s total labor force has steadily declined for years now, mirroring a national trend economists blame on more older workers retiring, long-term unemployed workers dropping out of the work force, and other contributing factors. In August, Washington’s rate was at 63 percent, near the U.S. rate of 62.80 percent, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Construction led the way in job growth from August to September, gaining 2,900 jobs, while retail trade and governments hired 2,000 new workers each, according to the report. Financial sectors hired 1,800 people over that period. Real estate contributed 1,600 new employees to that total.
Turek said the biggest job gains are still centered on the Puget Sound region, but are slowly starting to take pick up outside that area.
But those gains were offset by an estimated loss of 4,800 workers in the leisure and hospitality industries, 3,500 employees from education and health services, and 1,000 employees of transportation, warehousing or utility companies.
Compared year-over-year, though, every major industry in Washington has expanded except for transportation, warehousing and utility companies, which remains unchanged.
Private-sector employment grew 2.8 percent over the last year, while public sector job growth increase at a slightly slower pace of 1.4 percent, according to the report.
Overall, Turek said he saw more reasons to be positive than negative about the state’s short-term economic future, although he cautioned that outset could be affected by global influences such as trade disruptions due to conflicts abroad, or by impacts closer to home like major companies such as Boeing moving a large number of jobs out of state.
“There’s more reasons generally to be optimistic rather than pessimistic,” Turek said.
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