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Twelfth month of job growth yields little change in unemployment rate

9/14/2011

11-054

Media contacts: Sheryl Hutchison, communications director, 360-902-9289
                           Dave Wallace, acting chief economist, 360-407-4577

OLYMPIA – August marked the 12th consecutive month of job growth in Washington state, with an estimated one-year increase of 46,600, while the unemployment rate barely budged.

According to the state’s Employment Security Department, Washington gained an estimated 3,800 jobs last month, while the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 9.3 percent.  A year earlier, the unemployment rate was 9.4 percent.

“How many ways can you say slow, steady progress?” said Dave Wallace, the acting chief economist for Employment Security. “At some point, there will be a tipping point where the constant job growth starts eroding the unemployment rate.”

Industries that posted job gains in August included manufacturing, up 3,500 (including 600 jobs in aerospace); education and health services, up 2,000; information, up 1,800; construction, up 1,400; and retail trade, up 400.

Jobs were lost in financial activities, down 2,400; wholesale trade, down 1,600; leisure and hospitality, down 1,300; and government, down 400.

The year-over-year net job growth of 46,600 includes an estimated gain of 53,200 private-sector jobs and a loss of 6,600 government jobs.

An estimated 309,984 people (not seasonally adjusted) in Washington were unemployed and looking for work in August, and 177,751 of them received $234 million in unemployment benefits.  As of Sept. 3, 62,986 workers in Washington had run out of all unemployment benefits. 

Employment Security is a partner in the statewide WorkSource system, which offers a variety of employment and training services for job seekers, including free help with interviewing skills, résumés and job referrals. WorkSource also can help employers recruit and screen for qualified workers, apply for employment tax breaks and qualify for subsidized employee training.

Locations of local WorkSource offices are listed online at www.go2worksource.com and in the blue pages of local telephone books.

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Broadcast version

August marked the 12th consecutive month of job growth in Washington state – while the unemployment rate barely budged.

The state added an estimated 38-hundred jobs last month – for a total of more than 46-thousand jobs in the past year, according to the state’s Employment Security Department.

The August unemployment rate was nine-point-three percent – unchanged from July and only slightly lower than the nine-point-four percent rate in August of 2010.

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