Jobless Rate Hits Record For January

How hot is Washington state’s economy?

So hot that the state’s unemployment rate rose nearly a full percentage point last month and still set an all-time record low for the month of January.

The rate jumped from 4.3 percent in December to 5.2 percent in January, but that was still the lowest January rate since record keeping began in 1947, according to the Washington State Employment Security Department.

Even Spokane beat the previous January unemployment rate. A year ago, Spokane’s jobless rate was 6.6 percent.

This past January, it sunk to 6 percent - higher than the overall state average but generally a positive result, say state officials.

Employment Security Commissioner Carver Gayton said the rate has been close twice before: The rate was 5.3 percent during the Korean War in 1951, and 5.6 percent in 1966 at the height of the “Boeing Boom.”

Spokane’s economy showed actual job growth this most recent January compared with a year earlier.

All nonfarm jobs totaled 188,990, compared with 185,300 in January 1999.

“That’s a sign of slow, regular growth,” said ESD economist Fred Walsh.

Statewide, manufacturing payrolls fell 4,800, led by “fairly typical” seasonal job losses in lumber and wood products and food processing, the agency said.

Aircraft and parts dropped by another 1,100 in January. State economists are projecting losses of another 5,000 jobs through June 2001, with the possibility of a modest increase starting in the second half of next year.

This sidebar appeared with the story: Jobless rates

These are the January unemployment percentages for selected Washington counties.

Spokane 6.0

Adams 15.1

Asotin 4.6

Benton 6.6

Clark 3.8

Columbia 17.7

Douglas 9.2

Ferry 12.9

Franklin 13.3

Garfield 4.9

Grant 12.6

King 3.1

Lincoln 6.7

Okanogan 12.5

Pend Oreille 10.0

Pierce 4.7

Snohomish 4.3

Stevens 10.0

Walla Walla 8.1

Whitman 2.2

State high Columbia (17.7)

State low Whitman (2.2)