Clark County lost 400 jobs in October and saw a slight rise in unemployment over September, according to Washington Department of Revenue data released Tuesday.
But October’s 4.4 percent unemployment rate is two-tenths of a percentage point lower than October 2017. And regional economist Scott Bailey said the county is still on track to end the year with a positive overall job growth rate.
“Overall, the general trend we’ve been having for the last several years is solid employment growth, low unemployment and a pretty positive labor market,” Bailey said. “Just about everything’s positive over the year.”
Employment fell to 169,700 jobs over the course of the month, with most of the 1,600 losses coming from the leisure and hospitality and manufacturing industries. The losses were partially offset by a gain of 1,200 jobs in public education, which Bailey said follows seasonal patterns as districts adjust to the new school year and fill positions. Education job numbers may see another slight bump in November, he said.
The losses are also par for the course for Clark County in the fall, Bailey said, because more of the county’s entertainment and event industry is geared toward the summer months.
“That’s a pretty normal downturn for this time of year, because it’s freezing,” he said. “Leisure and hospitality usually goes up in the summer with the county fair and things like that going on and drops off this time of year. We don’t have much winter entertainment compared to summer.”
Retail job numbers held fairly steady from September to October, although general merchandise stores ticked up by 100 jobs in October, and Bailey said retail and delivery services will likely report more gains in November as businesses gear up for the holiday season.
“There’s actually usually something of a pickup in October and then especially in November,” he said. “That’s when things ramp up — they try to hire people to go through all the orientation and training.”
The retail bump has been getting a bit smaller each year, he added, likely due to rising rates of online shopping.
When reporting the state-level jobs numbers, the revenue department posts both 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. The county-level unemployment numbers are not seasonally adjusted, but in his own monthly report, Bailey said he calculated a seasonally adjusted result for Clark County which showed a net gain of 200 jobs for October.
The county’s unemployment rate for October was 4.4 percent, reflecting 10,133 people out of work — a slight increase from September’s 4.2 percent, but still at a near-record low for Clark County.
“The only lower point was back in 1997, 1998 and 1999, when we were in the threes,” Bailey said.
Unemployment rates should be expected to creep up a bit more in the next three months, he added, because unemployment tends to reach a peak low in September and October before jumping up in November, December and January due to a substantial drop in construction during the winter season. The total should start dropping again in February, he said.
The estimated number of employed Clark County residents has risen 1.5 percent over the year so far, with unemployed residents falling by 3 percent.
Clark County has gained an estimated 6,200 jobs, or 3.8 percent, over the year through the end of October. That figure surpasses the year-to-date rates of the U.S. overall at 1.7 percent, the state of Washington at 3.6 percent, Oregon at 2 percent and the Portland metro area at 2.2 percent.
The fastest-growing industry by far over the past 12 months was construction and mining, with 13.2 percent growth. Financial services and leisure and hospitality both showed upwards of 5 percent growth. The only industry to trend downward over the year was information services, with a loss of 100 jobs.
“The only issues this year have been the drop in jobs in the paper industry at the Camas mill, and then there was a company in information services that shut down its Vancouver office,” Bailey said. “That’s probably why information services is down 100 over the year.”
The company in question, Lionbridge Technologies Inc., is an international technology testing company headquartered in Massachusetts. The company closed its Vancouver location in June, laying off 199 workers.
