The Washington state’s Employment Security Department is showing continued job growth through January and an unemployment rate holding steady at 5.8 percent.
According to state officials, Washington added 12,800 new non-farm jobs from December 2015 to January 2016. The state’s unemployment rate remained at 5.8 percent, the same as revised employment rate for December 2015 and the same as one year ago in January 2015, according to estimates by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. The U.S. unemployment rate dropped slightly to 4.9 percent for January 2016.
The federal bureau shows Clallam County’s January 2016 unemployment rate at 9.2 percent (not adjusted for seasonal worker data) — the 11th-highest among Washington’s 39 counties. The figure is down from a 9.8 percent unemployment rate in 2014 and a 9.6 percent figure from last year.
“Washington continues to enjoy solid job growth,” said Paul Turek, Washington’s labor economist. “The state has continued to add new jobs each month since October 2014 — and we are continuing to see growth in the labor market.”
New jobs in retail, education/health and leisure/hospitality drove the job growth. See https://fortress.wa.gov/esd/employmentdata for more information.
