Oregon Public Broadcasting

The number of Northwest residents who are out of work continues to grow – despite signs the economy may soon start to recover. 

Oregon is experiencing record unemployment. Idaho is seeing a 22-year high. And Washington is reporting that its jobless rate is back up after briefly leveling off. Olympia Correspondent Austin Jenkins has details.

Last month, Washington state shed another 6700 jobs bringing its unemployment rate to 9.4 percent. That means nearly 330,000 people are out of work.

Oregon’s jobless rate is nearly 12.5 percent and Idaho’s just shy of 8 percent.

Nationally, economists are predicting the recession will soon bottom out. But Arun Raha,  Washington’s chief economist, expects the jobless numbers to get worse.

Arun Raha: “Even when we start adding jobs in the first quarter of next year – the unemployment rate will still keep rising. That happens because as jobs start to grow people move in from neighboring states and our labor force grows so we have a higher unemployment rate.”

Raha made his comments on TVW – Washington state’s version of C-SPAN. In Washington, the biggest job losses continue to be in construction.