State unemployment declines, county holds steady

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The state’s Employment Security Department has reported job growth for Washington as a whole at the start of the year, and Jefferson County appears to be sharing in the benefits, enough to be doing significantly better than much of the Olympic Peninsula.

ESD Communications Manager Bretta Beveridge released statistics for the state and its counties March 6 and 12, indicating Washington gained 12,300 jobs in January, for a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 4.5 percent.

This is half a percentage point removed from the U.S. unemployment rate of 4 percent for January, which the ESD statistic released by Beveridge drew from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Given that the state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rates were 4.8 percent in December, 5.4 percent in January of 2018 and 5.6 percent in January of 2017, as also reported by ESD, this would indicate a positive employment trend for Washington overall.

Without seasonal adjustments, the state’s unemployment rate is 5.3 percent for January, compared to 6.6 percent for Jefferson County.

Because of their sizes, the ESD’s statistics for counties are not seasonally adjusted, which gives Kitsap County an unemployment rate of 5.3 percent, the same as the state, and Island County an unemployment rate of 5.9 percent, still lower than Jefferson County.

By contrast, the unemployment rates for Mason, Clallam and Grays Harbor counties are 7.4, 8.1 and 8.2 percent, respectively.

Jim Vleming is one of ESD’s regional economists, whose coverage area includes Jefferson County.

“The Interstate corridor, and specifically King County, are behind much of the solid job growth statewide,” Vleming said. “The Olympic Peninsula’s smaller population, and lack of large employers, make job growth and creation much more of a challenge.”

Indeed, while Jefferson County had a labor force of 12,444 people for January of 2019, of which 824 were unemployed, ESD recorded that the cities of Seattle, Bellevue and Everett accounted for approximately 1.7 million members of the state of Washington’s civilian labor force of more than 3.8 million in that same month.

The unemployment rate for Seattle, Bellevue and Everett in January was 3.4 percent.

At the same time, Vleming noted Jefferson County has seen its unemployment levels steadily decrease over most of the past decade.

“For the whole year of 2018, the county’s unemployment rate was 5.9 percent,” Vleming said. “For 2017, it was 6.1 percent. It’s been going down every year since 2011, when it was at 10.5 percent. Where we’re at now is good, healthy territory.”

Even at peak performance, however, Vleming acknowledged that smaller counties will have a harder time “jolting the job market” due to the outsized influence of companies like Amazon in Seattle and Microsoft in Redmond.

“Part of the problem is that King County and the I-5 corridor are kind of carrying a lot of the economy,” Vleming said. “But aside from a few pockets, it’s fairly stable throughout the state, and Jefferson County in particular is looking at a pretty good pace.”

Vleming cited the strength of Jefferson County’s labor force, whose non-farming growth he credited with helping to close the gap with other counties.

“The economy is a rising tide that’s lifting all boats,” Vleming said.