State's January job gains vanish in February

Washington state last month gave back much of the employment gains it recorded in January, showing that any jobs recovery this year likely will be rocky and uneven.

Employers in the state cut 8,300 payroll jobs in February, following an 11,100-job gain in January, the Employment Security Department reported Tuesday. (The January gain was revised down from the 12,400-job increase first reported two weeks ago.)

The state's unemployment rate rose to a seasonally adjusted 9.5 percent in February, from 9.3 percent in January.

"Overall, it's a disappointing monthly report but not inconsistent with what we would expect at a turning point in the business cycle," said David Wallace, the state's acting chief labor economist.

The state jobless rate was only slightly better than the 9.7 percent national rate, and the highest level since February 1984. But in the Seattle metro area unemployment ticked down, to 8.8 percent from 8.9 percent in January.

Most industrial sectors lost jobs in February, reversing many of January's gains.

The battered construction sector, where payrolls grew in January for the first time in two years, last month gave back all those gains and more. Construction payrolls fell by 3,200 jobs in February and now stand 32 percent below their June 2007 peak.

Manufacturing lost 900 jobs in February, with essentially all the losses coming in aerospace. The information sector lost 300 jobs, despite a 300-job gain in software employment.

State-government employment, a focus of considerable public attention during the current legislative session, fell by 200 jobs last month. Local governments also cut 200 jobs, while federal employment fell by 500 jobs.

On the plus side, financial services gained 400 jobs, with real estate providing all the growth. Retail added 400 jobs, with growth in clothing and grocery stores offsetting cuts elsewhere.

Health and social services, a sector that had continued its steady growth throughout the two-year-long downturn, fell by 700 jobs last month. And employment services, often seen as a harbinger of future permanent hiring elsewhere in the economy, lost all its January gains, though Wallace noted that the industry is still up from its low last fall.

The bouncing numbers illustrate the complexities of tracking employment in a 3.5 million-person labor force.

The payroll figures and unemployment rates are derived from surveys of employers and individuals, respectively (not, as often thought, from counting how many people receive unemployment benefits). The raw numbers are then adjusted to smooth out seasonal variations in the labor force, and periodically benchmarked against companies' unemployment-tax returns.

All that means that the fluctuating monthly numbers, despite being the most current reports on the state's economic health, can mean less than trends over several months.

A three-month moving average of payroll employment, for instance, shows job losses decelerating, suggesting the state's jobs recession is at or close to a bottom.

Drew DeSilver: 206-464-3145 or ddesilver@seattletimes.com