Seattle Area Keeps Steadily Adding Jobs

Let’s take another look at the Seattle area’s employment situation.

First up, year-over-year job growth, broken down into a few relevant sectors:

Big gains for construction and manufacturing, both up seven percent. Retail slipped into the red slightly, but the other sectors we track are all still showing gains on the year.

Here’s a look at the overall Seattle area unemployment rate compared to the national rate:

The Seattle area is still outperforming Washington State and the nation as a whole, with September unemployment coming in at 7.6% for the US, 7.7% for Washington, and 7.0% for the Seattle area.

Still a ways to go until we get back to a strong local economy, but we continue to do better in Seattle than most other areas.