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Media contact: Jamie Swift, communications manager, 360-902-0904

OLYMPIA – More than a half-million Washington workers collected nearly $4.7 billion in unemployment benefits in 2010 – eclipsing records set in 2009. 

“This has been another demanding year for Employment Security, but even more challenging for those who still can’t find a job after months and months of looking,” said Joel Sacks, deputy commissioner of the Employment Security Department. 

Here are some figures regarding the recession’s effects in Washington this year and the Employment Security Department’s efforts to respond.  

• By Dec. 31, more than 500,000 Washingtonians will have received unemployment benefits in 2010, compared to 475,000 in 2009 and 290,000 in 2008. 
• The Employment Security Department will pay out nearly $4.7 billion in unemployment benefits in 2010, compared to $4 billion in 2009 and $1.2 billion in 2008.  About 58 percent of the 2010 benefits were paid by the federal government, for emergency and extended benefits that are available in Washington because the unemployment rate has remained high. 
• The average length of time jobless workers in Washington collected unemployment benefits stretched from 28 weeks at the end of 2009 to 41 weeks by the close of 2010.
• In March, the unemployment rate in Washington reached 9.5 percent (seasonally adjusted), the highest since the recession in the early 1980s.
• The total number of unemployed workers in Washington reached an all-time high in February, at 363,160 (not seasonally adjusted).  This number includes only the unemployed who were actively seeking work, not those who would like a job but had quit looking.  The number declined to about 323,000 in November.
• By the end of the year, more than 375,000 job seekers will have received employment counseling and assistance through local WorkSource centers in 2010, compared to about 385,000 in 2009.  WorkSource is a statewide partnership of Employment Security and other state government, local government and nonprofit agencies that provide a comprehensive array of employment and training services to job seekers and employers.
• A record number of businesses turned to Employment Security’s Shared-Work Program in 2010 as a way to reduce payroll costs and avoid layoffs. The number of employers approved to participate in the program topped 3,500 – compared to 2,700 in 2009.
• Although Employment Security has more than doubled the size of its unemployment-claims staff since the recession began, employees at the unemployment call centers worked about 46,000 hours of overtime this year to handle the large work load. That’s actually down from about 65,000 in 2009.

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Web links
ESD Web site: www.esd.wa.gov

Broadcast version

In 2010, more unemployment benefits were paid to more Washingtonians than ever before, according to the state’s Employment Security Department.

More than 500-thousand unemployed workers in Washington received unemployment benefits this year. And benefit payouts totaled about four-point-seven billion dollars. That’s compared to the short-lived record of four-billion dollars set in 2009.

Employment Security staff worked about 46-thousand hours of overtime this year to keep up with the record-setting workload.

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