Washington's jobless rate is highest in the nation

With an August unemployment rate of 7.2 percent, the state has replaced Oregon with the worst jobless numbers in the country.

Washington's rate rose a tenth of a percentage point from July figures, while Oregon's August rate of 7 percent was down three-tenths of a percentage point from the previous month. Since July 2001, Oregon has had the nation's worst unemployment rate.

Compared with the national jobless rate of 5.7 percent, both states are still languishing despite improvements in fits and starts. The jobless numbers are adjusted to remove the purely seasonal changes that occur at this time of year.

"It really is not a favorable picture," said Roberta Pauer, a Seattle economist at the Washington Employment Security Department. "The really disappointing news is that we're not making any discernible progress."

What's been called a mild recession feels very different in the Pacific Northwest, where a beleaguered high-tech industry coupled with the layoff of 30,000 Boeing workers have made the economic picture grim.

Jobs in both transportation and electronic equipment fell in August, contributing to the steady slide in manufacturing jobs. Washington lost 4,000 manufacturing jobs last month, leaving 312,000 statewide.

"We're the worst in the nation for very good reason," Pauer said. "We in the Puget Sound in particular have two specializations that have been hard hit, and that's a major factor in why our recession is lasting longer than the national recession and is more severe."

Over the past year, the state has lost 50,100 jobs, nearly 60 percent in the manufacturing sector. A quarter of the manufacturing losses came in aircraft and parts, a product of Boeing cuts.

Klickitat County reported the state's highest unemployment rate at 12.6 percent, while Whitman County reported the lowest, 2.3 percent.

With improved June numbers raising hopes and a July downturn dashing them again, Washington's economy is clinging to a bungee cord of seeming progress and regression. But economists say that that's typical of a recovery, and the negligible changes of the past few months are cause for neither celebration nor dismay.

Key areas of the economy such as real estate, services and finance, however, aren't taking the employment blows absorbed by manufacturing.

One of the notable distinctions between this recession and those of the past — and one that's helped to keep the downturn from being even worse — is that home sales, auto sales and consumer spending remain high, said John Mitchell, regional economist for U.S. Bank.

But such increases are what typically pull the country out of a recession, which has economists like Pauer worried about a prolonged recovery period.

"This has already gone on for an unusually long time," she said.

Lisa Heyamoto: 206-464-2149 or lheyamoto@seattletimes.com.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.