Clark County saw strong employment growth in November, continuing a yearlong trend that puts the county’s job growth rate above the rates of Washington and Oregon.
The county gained 700 jobs, reaching a total of 170,400 for the month, according to Washington State Employment Security Department data released Thursday.
“To give some context, if the county averaged that many new jobs each month over the next year, employment would grow at a 3 percent rate,” regional economist Scott Bailey wrote in his monthly jobs report.
The biggest gain was in retail trade, which added 500 jobs. Wholesale trade, transportation and health care each gained 100 jobs, and K-12 public schools added another 200. Those gains were partially offset by job losses in construction and manufacturing, leaving the total jobs number at a net 700 gained.
“This time of year, we get a pickup in retail and transportation jobs associated with the holidays,” Bailey said.
Unemployment was estimated at 10,827 people, or 4.6 percent. That’s a 0.2 percent increase over the October unemployment rate, although Bailey said the bump was expected — unemployment tends to rise in November, December and January due to a substantial drop in construction during the winter season.
“We’re pretty close to full employment, so it’s not surprising at all,” he said.
The 4.6 percent rate also comes in slightly below November 2017’s rate of 4.7 percent, which Bailey said makes it the county’s lowest November rate since 1999.
When reporting the state-level jobs numbers, the employment security department posts the actual change in jobs and a “seasonally adjusted” figure, which is recalculated to exclude large changes in the workforce that reliably occur at the same point in each year, such as thousands of students seeking summer jobs in June.
Clark County’s 4.6 percent November unemployment rate is a bit higher than the rate for Washington, which was estimated at 4.4 percent — or a seasonally adjusted 4.3 percent. The state gained an estimated 5,100 jobs in November.
The county-level unemployment numbers are not seasonally adjusted. But in his own monthly report, Bailey said he calculated a seasonally adjusted estimate for Clark County which showed a net gain of 440 jobs for November.
Clark County’s overall job growth rate for the first 11 months of 2018 stands at 6,100 jobs or 3.7 percent. For comparison, in the same time period the Portland metro area grew 1.8 percent, Oregon grew 2 percent, Washington grew 3.1 percent and the United States overall grew 1.7 percent.
The fastest-growing sectors in Clark County are construction and mining, financial services and leisure and hospitality, each of which show more than 5 percent growth over the year so far. The only industry that shows a substantial loss over the year is information services, which Bailey previously attributed to the June closure of the Vancouver office of testing company Lionbridge Technologies Inc.
Looking toward December, Bailey said the county’s job numbers for the month will likely remain consistent, with only small changes either up or down.
“December is usually fine-tuning,” he said.
Anthony Macuk: 360-735-4547; anthony.macuk@columbian.com; twitter.com/anthonymacuk
