Energy costs keep jobless rate up

PIERCE COUNTY: Decline in factory jobs may be linked to higher fuel bills

Barbara Clements; The News Tribune

High energy prices continue to chill Pierce County employment, according to a local analyst.

Pierce County's August jobless rate was 5.2 percent, unchanged from July. But that's nearly a point higher than the 4.3 percent recorded last August.

There's no single culprit in this climb, said Chris Johnson, Tacoma economist for the Washington State Employment Security Department. The drop in jobs in Tacoma, he said, seems to be scattered over a wide variety of categories.

"We don't have a single industry that we can point to as the bad guy," Johnson said.

Unless of course, you point to energy costs. There's been a steady dip in manufacturing jobs over the course of the year, he noted.

"The likely reason here is that energy prices are squeezing manufacturers," he said.

Although there was an increase of 600 jobs between August and July of this year, compared with last August's figures, total manufacturing jobs in Pierce County dropped by 1,200, statistics show.

One of the most recent examples of energy rates resulting in job losses was in June, when Kaiser Aluminum laid off 281 workers at its Tacoma plant

"This has been developing for a while," Johnson said of the August rates. "The cloud on the horizon is now a bit closer."

Building and construction jobs remained strong in Pierce County, gaining 1,100 jobs in that category in the year.

Government jobs were up over the year because of the echo effect of workers employed by the U.S. Census Bureau still shading the statistics, he said.

Statewide, the news also was discouraging.

The state's unemployment rate bucked a 20-year trend by inching up in August, but state labor officials say it's too soon to say whether the job market in Washington is losing its sizzle.

In Washington, the unemployment rate rose one-tenth of a percentage point, to 4.8 percent, marking the first increase in August in two decades, said state Employment Security Commissioner Carver Gayton.

Seasonally adjusted, the state's jobless rate is 5.1 percent. The seasonally adjusted national rate was 4.1 percent.

Statewide, the aircraft and parts industry dropped another 200 jobs in August, bringing the total drawdown since August 1999 to 8,000.

In King County, the jobless rate drifted down by one-tenth of a percent to 3.5 percent in August.

In Olympia, the jobless rate was 4.7 percent, the same as in July, but higher than the 4.3 percent jobless rate reported in August 1999.