Unemployment in Washington state moves up to 9.3 percent |
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We've been tracking some fairly significant layoff announcements at Washington technology companies in the past few weeks, including cuts at Microsoft, RealNetworks and Classmates.com. So, we were somewhat interested to look into the state's unemployment report which was released today.
And it appears that the "jobless recovery" continues. The unemployment rate in Washington state rose to 9.3 percent in October, up slightly from a revised 9.1 percent during September. How bad is it?
Washington had 120,000 fewer jobs in October than it did for the same month last year.
And here's more bad news. It is likely that many of the recent tech layoffs were not included in the October report, since Microsoft, Real and Classmates each made their cutbacks at the beginning of November.
Given that, the information category -- where many of the high-tech jobs are found -- saw an increase of 700 jobs during the month. That was the second best category for job growth, following the government sector which added 900 jobs.
It will be interested to see what happens in the November report when the cutbacks are included. Also, tech firms could delay hiring as we head into the holidays.
As a whole, the information sector recorded 102,800 jobs during October. That compared to 102,100 in September and 106,700 in October 2008.
Related story: "As layoffs mount at tech giants, NVCA finds 399 jobs in state"
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WTIA 15th Annual Industry Achievement Awards
Held on March 4th at the Showbox SODO, this casual event celebrates and recognizes some of the best emerging and established companies in the Washington Tech Industry. The evening will feature a finalist company technology showcase and a variety of coffee, chocolate, and wine samples from local companies. More than 800 attendees are expected to be present at the celebration. Public online voting for Technology Leader of Tomorrow Scholarships will open February 3rd on the WTIA site.
We congratulate the 2010 finalists and look forward to unveiling the winners on March 4th. REGISTER NOW!
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