September 2019 county-level employment figures and unemployment rates for Washington State’s 39 counties were released by the Washington State Employment Security Department today (Tuesday, 22 October 2019). October 2019 county-level employment figures and unemployment rates will be released on Tuesday, 19 November 2019. The attached September 2019 edition of the Yakima Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) Labor Area Summary (LAS) and analyzes these current not seasonally adjusted nonfarm employment and civilian labor force figures for Yakima County, focusing on year-over-year (between September 2018 and September 2019) and average annual trends (between 2017 and 2018).
Current indicators reveal more bad- than good-news for the Yakima County economy:
· The good news: Yakima County’s Civilian Labor Force (CLF) has expanded, year over year, for the past 23 months (November 2017 through September 2019) and monthly civilian labor force growth rates have been fairly robust in Yakima County, indicating that workers are still entering the labor force – as shown in the first graph, below.
· The bad news: the local monthly not-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate has risen for the past twelve months, from October 2018 through September 2019 (see Figure 1 in the attached report). Also, year over year, the growth pace of Yakima County’s nonfarm labor market has lagged Washington’s job growth pace for the past 17 months (May 2018 through September 2019) – as shown in the second graph, below.
Donald W. Meseck, Regional Labor Economist
Serving Adams, Chelan, Douglas, Grant, Kittitas, Okanogan, and Yakima Counties
Labor Market and Economic Analysis (LMEA)
Washington State Employment Security Department (ESD)
Yakima WorkSource, 1205 Ahtanum Ridge Drive, Union Gap, WA 98903
Office Phone: (509) 574-0176;
Cell Phone: (509) 607-3267
E-mail: dmeseck@esd.wa.gov
Website: https://esd.wa.gov/labormarketinfo
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