Concerns Linger on Employment in Washington

Residents in the Washington area are still quite cautious about the security of their job positions, even though there has been quite an improvement when it comes down to the employment rate and hiring trends. Data that was recently released during the Annual Washington State Workplace Confidence Survey showed that nearly half of workers in the area of Washington were afraid to loser their job and stated that it was a huge concern from them. The number of people who felt concerned about their job was at 33%, which was 3% higher than 2011, when 30% of people felt concerned about the possibility of losing their job.

The unemployment rate for the state of Washington remained unchanged, staggering at 8.3 percent during both February and March of 2012. This means that about 289,000 individuals were still unemployed during those months, seeking employment. This was less than the number of unemployed individuals from the same month of February two years prior, back in 2010, when over 365,000 individuals were out of work and seeking employment.

The regional director at Everest College said that while the economy is improving, it is doing so at a slow pace and because of that, there is still a lot of anxiety going on in the workplace. Even with unemployment numbers declining over the years, people still have that fear that their job is not promised to them and that at any given moment, they could lose their position. Even with improvement being made and more people being hired, so many residents in Washington and in the United States as whole still have major concerns about their job security. The Everest College is seeing people of all ages joining the school in order to get more training and skills that are needed to get into specific fields and positions that provide a certain amount of security.

And, while the survey found out people in Washington are highly concerned about the security of their jobs, the survey also showed that many workers, just about 60% of them, are dealing with stress that is related to their place of work. They are mostly stressed about their pay, along with the thought of losing their job and what they would do if they did lose the job. The survey also showed that younger workers had much higher rates of stress, specifically about the possibility of losing their job, than older workers did. Those who make more each year are also less likely to be stressed while those who make less than $60,000 per year were more likely to deal with stress about their job and about the amount of money they are making within their position.