The latest look at jobs numbers tells us why Seattle is growing.
In April, the Seattle-Bellevue-Everett metropolitan division added 46,200 net new jobs year-over-year, the third best performance in the nation after Dallas and New York City. The gain represented 2.8 percent.
While it’s a one-month snapshot, released today by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, the numbers continue a trend seen since since 2012.
Thus, while speculation and Chinese hot money may be partial factors behind Seattle leading the nation in percentage growth of housing prices, they are not the major determinant. People are coming here for jobs. Not only that, but the growth is happening during an employment decline at Boeing.
Add in Pierce County and take out Snohomish and the growth was a bit less. The Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metropolitan area gained a little more than 39,000 compared with April 2016. The unemployment rate for the area was 3.4 percent. Reframe to the Seattle-Bellevue-Everett metro division and the rate was 2.9 percent. The Tacoma-Lakewood metropolitan division saw 5.3 percent unemployment and job gain of 9,259.
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All 11 of Washington’s metropolitan areas saw job gains, although some were very modest. Portland saw a gain of 28,431.
Today’s Econ Haiku:
A burning question:
Will we always have Paris?
Oui, without the Yanks