PORT ANGELES — A regional economist painted a mixed picture of Clallam County’s economy and told Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce members Monday that the future looks brighter.
“We’re in recovery,” said Elizabeth Scott, an economist with the state Employment Security Department.
“The indicators are showing the economy’s coming back, but we just absolutely have to see more jobs before things really get rolling.”
Clallam County has seen a 20 percent spike in non-farm jobs since 1990, Scott said. That should continue through the next decade, she added, because people are working later into life and 6,000 new residents are expected by 2020.
Compared with the rest of state, Clallam County has an older and more educated population. Scott’s statistics showed 53.1 percent of residents 25 and older have attended some college.
“You guys up here have a very educated work force,” she said.
“You’re above the state average when you come to the associate’s degree. I think that’s really good because lots of the new jobs out there don’t require bachelor’s [degrees]. They require technical or associates’s degrees.”
Older work force
More than 22 percent of the county’s work force is 55 or older. That compares with 17 percent for Washington as a whole.
“That’s really big,” Scott said of the margin.
“You talk about 5 percent across the board — that’s quite a big issue. So it’s something else to keep in mind.”
The unemployment rate in Clallam County remained at 9.3 percent last month. That figure doesn’t include the people who have stopped looking for work.
The state’s unemployment rate was 8.9 percent in July, and the national jobless figure was 9.5 percent.
“One of the challenges still here is the unemployment rate,” Scott told chamber members at their weekly luncheon at the Port Angeles CrabHouse Restaurant.
“That has still remained high. It’s traditionally higher here, as you guys know, than the rest of the state. Across the whole country, we’re just not seeing the jobs come back like we really need.”
Employment security
Scott represents the Olympic Consortium of Employment Security, which includes Clallam, Jefferson and Kitsap counties.
Like other rural counties, government workers make up a large percentage (31) of the Clallam County labor force.
Even if you take away the public sector, Scott said overall wages in the county are up.
Total public and private payroll in Clallam County increased from $533 million to $730 million since 2002, Scott said. Just 3 percent of the jobs in Clallam County are minimum wage.
Scott declined to speculate about the economic impacts of the removal of the Elwha River dams in the next four years.
Clallam County officials have said they expect the $351 million National Park Service project to help lift the county out of the recession.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
