Clark County’s economy expanded in December with “very strong” job growth, the region’s labor economist reported Tuesday, It added 6,200 jobs over the year and posted an annualized growth rate of 4.4 percent.
But while the county’s unemployment rate — a preliminary 7.2 percent last month — is improving, it also “continued to be high,” Scott Bailey, regional labor economist for the Washington Employment Security Department, wrote in his analysis released Tuesday.
It’s a puzzler: How is it possible to have both robust employment growth and an elevated jobless rate?
Several factors play a role, Bailey said.
One factor: When the global economy crashed, the county suffered higher levels of unemployment than other places. “It takes longer to get out of that,” Bailey said, “and so we’re working it down.”
Another part: unemployed county residents who previously worked in Oregon. While it’s tricky to measure the impact, Bailey said, the “evidence seems to be that our commuters got hit harder than the general population.”
Yet another element: who’s counted as unemployed and who’s not. County residents who dropped out of the labor force when the economy tanked were no longer counted as unemployed. As they return to seek a job in a labor market that’s on the mend, they’re once again counted as unemployed.
As a result, the county’s jobless rate, while improving, isn’t likely to sharply decline.
The county’s preliminary unemployment rate clocked in at 7.2 percent in December. That’s down from 8.7 percent unemployment in December 2013. However, December’s initial jobless rate of 7.2 percent will likely be revised upward to nearly 8 percent, according to Bailey.
Clark County’s preliminary unemployment rate of 7.3 percent in November was revised upward to 8.1 percent. By contrast, joblessness statewide is 6.2 percent (it’s 6.3 percent when adjusted for seasonal factors).
That’s not to say Clark County is some kind of dawdler.
It’s just that the Seattle metro area, as stacked as it is with big global employers, jobs that pile up like cordwood and the kind of wages that buy a lot of stuff, enjoys a 4.2 percent unemployment rate. And that skews the state’s average unemployment.
Take the Seattle metro area out of the state total, Bailey said, and “what’s left has a 7.8 percent unemployment rate.”
The ‘big four’
Although Clark County’s unemployment rate isn’t coming down fast, the region’s rate of job growth has come on strong. And it continues to outpace the nation’s.
The county’s annualized growth rate of 4.4 percent more than doubled that of the U.S. (2 percent), easily topped those of Washington and Oregon (2.7 percent and 2.8 percent, respectively) and surpassed that of the Portland metro area (2.5 percent).
The county’s job growth rate was slightly lower than the 4.9 percent it posted in November because of “some revisions to second-quarter data,” Bailey wrote in his analysis.
The county also experienced across-the-board growth in private and public sector payrolls in the 12 months ending in December. Although the county’s “big four” job sectors were a bit subdued because of the second-quarter adjustments, according to Bailey, they remained strong: trade, transportation and utilities was up 1,300 jobs, professional and business services gained 700 positions, construction was up 800 jobs, and education and health services rose by 1,300 jobs.
Other bright spots for the county’s labor market: “Job losses, as measured by unemployment claims, remained at a very low rate,” Bailey wrote in his analysis. “Initial unemployment claims rose slightly in December but were still at very low levels. Continued claims continued to trend downward and were back to pre-recession levels, but with a larger job base.”