State Unemployment Rate at 8.1 Percent

While the economy for the state managed to lose a total of 300 jobs, the unemployment rate still managed to fall during the month of April and is currently at 8.1 percent. Many of the state officials were quite confused as to how this was possible but these statistics come from two different factors. The unemployment rate is set based on household survey while the amount of jobs that have been added or lost comes from a separate survey, one related strictly to business.

One senior economist, Dave Wallace, says that it can be quite confusing when each of the different surveys portrays different results than one other, basically results that will contradict one another in some ways. For the private sector, there was job growth of nearly 2,000 jobs. However, the public sector did not do nearly as well as the private sector and ending up dealing with a loss of just about 2,300 jobs for the month. Wallace believes that these numbers will be revised shortly, once there has been a collection of even more data.

The jobless rate during the month of April was lower than it has been since January of 2009. At that point in time, the unemployment rate was at 7.7 percent. The jobless rate for the state was just about the same as the national unemployment rate. However, in certain areas, more specifically the Seattle area, the unemployment rate was at 7.1 percent, which was a decline from the previous month, when the unemployment rate was at 7.3 percent during the month of March.

The state of Washington still has a long way to go when it comes to the recovery, just like the nation does. The Great Recession did a number on the economy and it has taken years for the recovery process to actually begin so that the economy could improve. Back in February of 2008, there was an unemployment rate of 4.6 percent. Unfortunately, the recession took its toll and by February of 2010, the unemployment rate was a high of 10.2 percent. While that was definitely rock-bottom for the state of Washington, the state has since been able to gain back about 88,200 of the jobs that were once lost. There are still many jobs that need to be created once again.

Of all the different sectors, it seems as though the manufacturing sector took the lead when it came down to job growth for the state. During the month of April alone, the manufacturing sector added nearly 3,000 of those jobs that were added. By the month of May in the state of Washington, nearly 90,000 workers were no longer eligible for the unemployment benefits that they once received, which could change the unemployment picture for the following month.