Snohomish County’s unemployment rate rose in January as retailers dropped temporary employees after Christmas, but there was good news with the bad.
Call it some light at the end of the tunnel.
“I think we’ve reached the pivot point,” Anneliese Vance-Sherman, the county’s labor economist for the state Employment Security Department, said Tuesday.
Vance-Sherman said the labor force lost 1,000 workers in January, not unusual given the annual shuffle by retailers. But she said that for the past several months, an increasing number of employment sectors is growing when year-over-year numbers are compared.
“When you look down the columns, there are a lot more positive numbers than there were a year ago,” she said. “That hasn’t been the case for a long time.”
Leading the recovery is the aerospace industry.
The Boeing Co. and other jet manufacturers have added 2,500 jobs in the county during the past year.
“Boeing has recently announced plans to ramp up production schedules for their Renton-bult 737 and Everett-built 777 lines over the next couple years,” Vance-Sherman noted. “Furthermore, Boeing’s win of the U.S. Air Force tanker contract will keep the 767 on-line in Everett.”
She noted that a number of other sectors are still hurting, with construction at the top of the list. Mining, logging and construction have lost 400 jobs in the past year and specialty trade contractors have lost 500.
“But a lot more industries, in terms of jobs, are in the black, not in the red,” she said.
Going back to January, the county jobless rate was inconsistent with the state average, which dropped from 9.3 in December to 9.1 percent in January, state officials reported last week.
In addition to retail, which lost 1,300 workers in the county in January, sectors shedding jobs here included mining, logging and construction; building construction; wholesale trade; telecommunications; employment services; and leisure and hospitality.
In addition to aerospace, which added 300 workers in January, adding jobs were the finance/insurance and state government sectors.
The county’s labor force totaled 378,730 people in January, with an estimated 340,640 people working and an estimated 38,090 people looking for work.
Vance-Sherman noted that initial jobless claims fell from 7,407 in December to 6,601 in January. Final claims increased over the month from 937 to 1,052.
The largest share of people still receiving unemployment benefits are people in construction-related fields, Vance-Sherman said. They were followed by office and administrative support workers, people in transportation, production workers and sales people.
She said the second half of 2010 was “characterized by slow growth and stagnation” following the recession.
“In recent months, over-the-year estimates for some industries have finally begun to match or exceed previous employment,” she said. “In Snohomish County, most industries were better off in January 2011 that they were in January 2010.”
Job gains in county
From January 2010 to January 2011:
Aerospace: 2,500
Business and professional services: 1,400
Leisure and hospitality: 800
Trade, transportation, utilities: 500
Education and health: 500
Retail: 300
Building construction: 200
Insurance carriers: 200
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