WA State Unemployment Rate Hits 9.4%

After stabilizing for one month in April (after a long string of unemployment rate increases), the State's unemployment rate has resumed its upward march, standing now at 9.4% for May 2009 (up from April's adjusted 9.0%).

In the past year, the total number of unemployed in the state has nearly doubled rising from 177,000 to 336,00. Over the past year 116,000 jobs have been lost in the state, but even more surprising is that over 40% of those losses have taken place since the beginning of this year.

Even some of the formerly strong areas such as high tech workers are now on the decline. "Information" workers are down 2.9% in the past year.

The only areas showing net increases over the past year are healthcare, social services and government (virtually nothing can't halt the growth of government!). The view the compete report from the state, click here.