OLYMPIA, Wash. — Washington state’s unemployment rate shot up to 9.2 percent last month, still higher than the national rate and nearly double what it was a year ago.
The increase was nearly 1 percentage point from February’s revised rate of 8.3 percent.
More than 344,000 people were unemployed and looking for work in March, according to numbers released today by the state Employment Security Department.
Officials said there was no significant job growth in any major industry or sector. The largest monthly declines were in construction, which lost 5,100 jobs, durable goods, down 2,400 jobs, and education and health services, down 2,100 jobs.
In the March report, officials note that during the last recession beginning in January 2001, unemployment levels increased in the state for 14 of the following 15 months, with a 45 percent total rise in unemployment during that period.
“Over the same 15 months beginning in January 2008, unemployment increased by 111 percent,” the report said.
Officials also note that the state’s unemployment rate has increased each month during the quarter by more than half a percentage point. During the last three national recessions, officials said, that only happened once, in November 2001.
It’s also the third consecutive month that the state’s rate has been higher than the national rate, currently at 8.5 percent.
Last year at this time, Washington’s unemployment rate was 4.8 percent. The state has lost 99,100 jobs from March 2008 to March 2009, a 3.3 percent decrease. Only the education and health services sector and government services have added jobs in the past 12 months.
“However, a troubling sign is that education and health services exhibited job losses for three of the last four months,” the report said.
The highest unemployment rate in the state was in November 1982, when it hit 12.2 percent.
Legislators this year, while trying to plug a projected $9 billion deficit though 2011, have made several proposals to help unemployed workers.
Under a new measure signed into law earlier this year, benefits are temporarily increased for the growing ranks of the unemployed.
The measure boosts the minimum weekly benefit amount and adds $45 a week for all jobless workers. That makes the minimum payment $200 per week, and the maximum $586. Under the federal stimulus plan, those benefits increase by $25 a week.
The temporary increases take effect May 3, and end with claims filed on Jan. 3, 2010. The federal increase took effect last month, so state claimants will receive a lump sum in May.
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