Clark County’s labor market gained 1,800 jobs in June, breaking out of what regional economist Scott Bailey described in his monthly report as a two-month slump. The latest numbers from the Washington Employment Security Department were released Tuesday.
At the same time, the unemployment rate jumped to 5.3 percent, compared with 4.7 percent in May (the initial May estimate of 4.8 percent was later revised to 4.7).
Unadjusted nonfarm employment rose to 172,000, with the biggest gains in the government employment sector, which grew by 500 jobs. The construction sector added 400 jobs, as did the professional and business services sector. Financial services also grew by 200 jobs.
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.
County-level labor market numbers are not seasonally adjusted, but Bailey said his monthly report includes a seasonally adjusted estimate for Clark County that showed a net gain of 900 jobs.
The June growth comes after a couple of months of more modest numbers. Unadjusted employment grew by 900 jobs in May, which Bailey said translated into an adjusted loss of about 200 jobs, indicating a slight slowdown in the labor market when viewed in terms of usual seasonal trends.
Past 12 months
The labor market report estimates Clark County’s job growth rate over the past year at 2 percent, compared with 2.6 percent for the Portland metro area, 2.5 percent for the state of Oregon, 2.4 percent for the state of Washington and 1.5 percent for the United States overall.
The numbers for the past year also reflect the county’s population growth; the estimated number of employed residents has grown by 2.6 percent, and the estimated number of unemployed residents has grown as well, rising by 17.1 percent.
Construction and mining continues to be Clark County’s fastest-growing sector over the past 12 months; as of the end of June, the sector had added 900 jobs in the past year, growing by 6 percent.
Financial services and the leisure and hospitality category have both maintained decent growth over the past year, according to Bailey’s report, and the education and health services category has been bumped up to the “decent” growth rating — in the May report, that sector was listed as having weaker growth over the past 12 months.
