WASHINGTON STATE

Washington State House Democrats

HOUSE DEMOCRATS

More jobs for Washington, again

CrewIf you’re keeping track of the accelerating flow of good economic news for Washington state, notice this:  The state’s unemployment rate dipped down to 5.6 percent in July.

That’s the rosiest number since the onset of the Great Recession back in 2008, and continues a mostly steady improvement that’s been ongoing since joblessness peaked at 10.2 percent during the dark winter of 2009-10.

Washington – a state curiously smeared as “unfriendly to business” – added 7,300 jobs last month, and during the past 12 months created more than 92,000 new paychecks, with 19 out of 20 being in private industry.

Our unemployment rate is the lowest by far of the west coast states, and compares favorably to the national figure of 6.2 percent.

These trends remains positive, and except for manufacturing, which shed a modest 300 jobs in the last year, every industry in the state is employing more people today than they were at this point in 2013.