Published August 2002

Job market shows signs
of ‘emerging recovery’

By Mike Benbow
Herald Business Editor

Amid all the economic confusion in the past few weeks came this ray of hope from state employment officials: The job market here may be turning around.

That was the assessment of Sylvia Mundy, commissioner of the state Employment Security Department, after reporting that the unemployment rate in Washington dropped to 6.8 percent in June when adjusted for seasonal changes.

That’s a three-tenths of a percentage point drop from May, enough to raise hopes of better things to come for Washington state.

“Washington’s labor market revealed signs of an emerging recovery in June,” Mundy said. “Given its tepid performance overall in the first half of this year, we are cautiously optimistic that this marks a turning point for the state’s labor market.”

What has state officials excited is an increase of 1,700 jobs in the business services category. Many of the new positions in that category are temporary workers who do such things as bookkeeping, data processing or administrative work.

“Maybe they’re not quite prepared to take on permanent workers, but they’re feeling confident enough to increase their work force with temporary help,” said Gary Kamimura, a senior economist with the department.

Snohomish County is seeing similar trends, though the news isn’t as good here as it is for the state as a whole. June unemployment was 7.4 percent, identical to the adjusted rate for May.

“The preliminary May rate was 7.5 percent, but it has been revised downward to 7.4 percent,” said Donna Thompson, the agency’s labor market economist for Snohomish County. “Even a decline this small is welcome news to an economy that’s been hammered over the last three quarters.”

Layoffs at the Boeing Co.’s Everett plant and at related businesses continued in June. Boeing announced recently that scheduled cutbacks of some 30,000 people companywide were nearing an end, but that smaller layoffs would continue as required by business prospects.

Thompson said the county lost 300 jobs in aircraft and parts in June.

Thompson speculated that if slowdowns in business travel continue, Boeing may cancel or delay plans for developing the Sonic Cruiser, a passenger jet intended to fly at just below the speed of sound.

Workers developing the project have been assigned to the Everett plant, though the company has yet to say where the jet would be assembled.

Thompson also noted that local businesses have been hiring more temporary workers. Some 200 of them were added to the payroll in June, showing that other businesses here are starting to pull out of their slump.

Other categories that added jobs in the county in June included food products, petroleum, coal and plastics, health services, social services, retail trade and local government. Jobs in schools, the wood products industry and engineering declined.

The new jobless rate means that of an estimated labor force of 340,300 people in Snohomish County, 315,100 were working and 25,200 were looking for a job.

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