A good month or two doesn’t make a trend, but I’m mildly heartened by the local unemployment numbers released last week.
After a long time idling at 10 percent, the Snohomish County jobless rate dropped to 9.5 percent in April and to 9.2 percent in May.
I’m not suggesting that 9.2 perc
ent is anything to crow about. And it’s true that a lot of people have stopped looking for work or moved, so the actual number of unemployed is higher than that.
But I am glad to see what appears to be a trend — unemployment is falling in the county.
The 9.2 percent in May is the lowest number we’ve seen since April 2009 — two years. The number of people employed in May went up 1,930 people and the number of unemployed fell by an estimated 1,060.
Until May, the Boeing Co. and its suppliers were about the only local companies that were hiring people, at least with any consistency. But May was different.
Aerospace hired 600 workers, and so did leisure and hospitality. Trade, transportation and utilities hired 400. Construction hired 300, although it’s still in negative territory compared to a year ago. Local government hired 200 workers, information hired 100, as did education and health services and other services.
The only sector in the losing column was professional and business services, which lost 100 jobs.
Are we out of the woods?
Of course not.
Dave Wallace, the acting chief economist for the state Employment Security Department, said at a seminar last week in Everett that the state lost jobs consistently until February 2010 — more jobs on a percentage basis than in any downturn since the severe recession in 1969.
He noted that Washington state also has a higher than average number of people who are working part time involuntarily, meaning they want full time work and haven’t found it.
That said, things are getting better, although much more slowly than we would like.
“We are making a recovery in Snohomish County,” said Anneliese Vance-Sherman, the labor economist for Employment Security who watches the county numbers. “We have seen job growth, albeit slowly. But it is coming back. We expect it to be slow for a long time to come.”
Vance-Sherman noted that aerospace accounts for 67 percent of the county’s manufacturing jobs. “It is our dominant driver,” she said, adding that aerospace and construction are the keys to the local economy.
She noted that the county pretty much hit bottom in May 2010. It’s picked up 4,500 jobs since then. As I said, construction is still in negative territory. It lost 40 percent of its workers in the county during the recession.
The stagnant housing market isn’t helping construction very much.
Also at the seminar last week was a group of people from different employers talking about what we need to do to create more jobs.
The one thing everyone agreed on was more and better training.
Patty DeGroodt of Providence Regional Medical Center said her hospital can’t hire enough nurses. And she noted that Everett Community College has a waiting list for slots in its nursing program.
Frank Prochaska of the Association of Western Pulp and Paper Workers noted that most of the skilled trades — electricians, for example — are desperate for apprentices.
“We have 10 percent unemployment — or 18 percent structural unemployment — and yet we have all these potentially open jobs,” said Dave Peinecke, chairman of the county’s Workforce Development Council.
Linda Armstrong of Aviation Technical Services said there are certain jobs she is always looking to fill.
Armstrong noted that her company sometimes has problems finding candidates who are motivated to work hard. “We don’t know how to motivate adults and youth to buy into it,” she said.
Prochaska agreed.
“We have a hard time finding employees prepared to work in a manufacturing environment,” he said. “Almost no one who applies has manufacturing experience. It really saddles employees.”
It was interesting to hear there are jobs available now and certainly will be more in the future that require skills that are hard to find.
This isn’t going to help us with the job situation today, but it was clear listening to the various representatives from industry that we need to do a better job of getting young people excited about some available good paying jobs. And we also need to provide the money to our community colleges and other programs to provide the necessary training.
Mike Benbow: 425-339-3459; benbow@heraldnet.com.
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