State’s Unemployment Rate Remains at 8.3%, Tech Sectors Keep Growing

Washington’s June unemployment rate remained 8.3% unchanged from May according to Washington’s Employment Security Dept. (https://fortress.wa.gov/esd/employmentdata/home)

ESD compiles and reports a wide range of employment information and publishes it regularly.  In the same unemployment report, it shows that software publishers grew by 1000 jobs over the past year while computer system design firms grew by 1600 jobs over the same period of time.  Both of these high-tech categories pay among the highest average salaries in the state at over $100K per year.

Even computer and electronic product manufacturing grew by 300 jobs over the past year.  These numbers indicate that even as unemployment remains stubbornly high in many areas of the state, technology related industries continue to grow.

The state rate of 8.3% unemployment is down from a high of 10.2% that occurred in the first quarter of 2010 but still above the low of 4.4% experienced in the 2nd quarter of 2007.

The King-Snohomish County unemployment rate of 7.2% is slightly lower than the statewide rate, while Pierce County is currently experiencing 9.0% unemployment.

This page, https://fortress.wa.gov/esd/employmentdata/reports-publications, of Employment Security’s website offers a wide array of reports and spreadsheets on employment, salary and trends.