Wash. unemployment rate rises to 9.4 percent

Washington's unemployment rate rose to 9.4 percent last month, up from a revised rate of 9 percent in April, state officials announced Tuesday.

More than 327,000 people in the state were unemployed and looking for work in May, with about 215,218 receiving unemployment benefits, according to the state's Employment Security Department.

The last time the state's unemployment rate was comparable was in April and March of 1984, when it was 9.3 percent and February of 1984, when it was 9.6 percent.

"The recession has been deep and wide, and we're likely to see ups and downs for a while," Greg Weeks, director of the department's Labor Market and Economic Analysis unit, said in a prepared statement.

Washington's unemployment rate has been higher than the national rate for months, but the U.S. rate caught up with the state last month.

In the Pacific Northwest, Washington's rate is second only to Oregon, which announced Monday that it hit a record 12.4 percent in May. Alaska is at 8 percent, followed by 7.8 percent in Idaho.

Last year at this time, Washington's unemployment rate was 5.5 percent. The state lost 116,000 jobs from May 2008 to May 2009, a 3.9 percent decrease. Nationally, employment declined by the same percentage over the past year.

The industries in the state that saw the largest declines from April to May were construction, which lost 3,100 jobs, information, which was down 1,300 jobs, financial activities, which shed 1,100 jobs, and government, which cut 1,200 jobs.

One sector that saw a significant increase was leisure and hospitality, which added 1,600 jobs. Education and health services also added jobs.

Mary Ayala, chief economist for the Employment Security Department, said that one promising sign is that while the unemployment rate is continuing to climb, the number of jobs that are lost from month to month is decelerating slightly.

For example, 6.400 construction jobs were lost between February and May, compared with 7,200 lost in the six months prior to that.

"This is very encouraging news," she said.

In a report delivered earlier this month, the state Economic and Revenue Forecast Council said the recession should bottom out in the third quarter.

Arun Raha, the state's chief economist, said the pace of job losses should slow in the coming months, with state unemployment expected to peak in the second quarter of 2010 at 10.6 percent. Unemployment typically lags an economic recovery.

The highest unemployment rate in the state since the mid-1970s was in November 1982, when it hit 12.2 percent.

Eastern Washington is home to both the highest and lowest rate in the state: Pend Oreille County has a 14.7 percent unemployment rate, while Whitman County is at just 5.3 percent. On the west side, the state's largest county, King, had an unemployment rate of 8 percent.

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On the Net:

Full report: http://www.workforceexplorer.com/admin/uploadedPublications/9729(underscore)ESR(underscore)Jun16(underscore)09.pdf

Employment Security Department: http://www.esd.wa.gov

Economic review: http://www.erfc.wa.gov/pubs/ec20090605color.pdf