Clark County’s jobless rate holds steady as state sees an increase

Clark County’s job numbers defied the otherwise bleak October economic drumbeat, according to figures released on Tuesday. The local unemployment rate held steady last month at 6.7 percent, beating analysts expectations even as jobless rates climbed in Oregon, Washington as a whole and around the country.

Unemployment elsewhere in October:

-- 7.3 percent in Oregon, reflecting the biggest one-month employment drop in that state in 27 years.

-- 6.3 percent in Washington, up a half percentage point from September.

-- 6.5 percent across the U.S, up from 4.8 percent a year ago.

In November Clark County’s jobless rate could climb again as a result of recent layoffs announced at RS Medical, Fisher Investments and Columbia Machine, said Scott Bailey, labor economist with the Washington Employment Security Department in Vancouver.

“October was better than expected (for Clark County), but it doesn’t change the near-term outlook, which is not good,” Bailey said. “That’s because we’re going to see continuing weakness in construction, manufacturing and in retail.”

Last month, the county saw the opening of a new Lowe’s Home Improvement store in east Vancouver and the start of hiring for the holiday season, both of which helped boost retail employment by 300 jobs from September. Other sectors, including construction and manufacturing, saw declines.

Collectively, unemployment in the three-county area of Clark, Cowlitz and Wahkiakum counties climbed to 7 percent, 2.1 points higher than October 2007. The number of unemployed has reached 18,720. Of those, 14,650 are in Clark County, a 47 percent increase from 2007.

Statewide, weakness across nearly all economic sectors pushed up Washington’s unemployment rate.

That was an unwelcome change from September, when unemployment fell for the first time in five months, to 5.7 percent. In October 2007, the statewide unemployment was rate was just 4.8 percent.

Nearly 204,000 Washingtonians were unemployed and looking for work last month.

But despite the rise in unemployment, “Washington’s economy is in relatively better shape at the moment than the rest of the nation,” according to a state Employment Security Department report.

“The employment losses look dramatic, but we recouped all of them and then some when the Boeing strikers returned to work in November,” said Mary Ayala, chief economist for Employment Security.

Statewide, the retail sector and education services each lost about 1,700 jobs. Aside from the Boeing walkout, the manufacturing sector shed about 1,300 jobs. Construction lost about 1,100 jobs, continuing a string of monthly job losses that started in January.

Big gains came in the government, which was up by about 6,000 jobs, mostly in local government.

Subtracting the effects of the Machinists strike against Boeing, the state gained about 800 jobs in October, and held steady year-over-year. October was Washington’s eighth straight month of annual job growth above zero, but less than 2 percent.

During the last recession, the state experienced 25 consecutive months of job losses.