Peninsula Daily News and The Associated Press
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.
Clallam County unemployment rose to 11.3 percent; Jefferson County’s rate in March was at 9.5 percent.
More than 344,000 people were unemployed and looking for work in March, according to numbers released Tuesday 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.
The state’s chief economist, Mary Ayala, said the increases over the last three months were the largest since 1976, when the state began collecting uniform data.
“This is a major change for Washington,” she said.
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 since the mid-1970s was in November 1982, when it hit 12.2 percent.
Greg Weeks, director of the state’s Labor Market and Economic Analysis unit at the Employment Security Department, said that while the state hasn’t reached that peak, “our job loss is still very troubling.”
In a separate report this week, chief state economist Arun Raha said job losses will continue, but slow down for the rest of 2009. Washington’s official economic forecast predicts the unemployment rate will peak next year at about 10 percent.
Washington’s economy is expected to rebound when the national economy improves, and Raha said there is some reason for optimism about a national economic recovery.
Since unemployment figures generally lag economic growth, Raha noted, “it is normal for the economy to shed jobs even after a recovery is under way.”
Legislators, 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.
Pearse Edwards, spokesman for Gov. Chris Gregoire, said the governor “is doing whatever is necessary to get Washingtonians back to work as soon as possible.”
Edwards said Gregoire’s top priority is making sure the more than $7 billion in federal stimulus money coming to the state is “allocated wisely, responsibly and quickly so we can get people back to work and earning a regular paycheck.”
A record 90,331 new unemployment applications were filed in the state in December. More than 67,000 new applications were filed in March, up slightly from the 65,9000 filed in February.
More than 224,000 people in Washington are collecting unemployment benefits.
