February jobless rate falls in Seattle, state

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The unemployment rate fell last month in both the Seattle metro area and Washington state as a whole, powered by continued job gains in retail, business services and construction.

the combined gains for the first two months of 2007 "look very good for the state," said Evelina Tainer, chief economist for ESD's Labor Market and Economic Analysis branch.

The construction sector continued to defy the housing slowdown, adding a seasonally adjusted 600 jobs in February and 11,200 over the past 12 months.

Aerospace, which is concentrated in metro Seattle, added 300 jobs in February for a seasonally adjusted total payroll of 76,900. That's the most aerospace jobs since May 2002, though still almost 40,000 below the peak payrolls of the early 1990s.

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