The latest jobs report for Washington state shows slight hiring growth and a dip in unemployment for the first time in more than a year and a half. Though unemployment in the state remains higher than the national average, labor economists called the news \u201cbright\u201d and credited World Cup-related hiring for the bump.<\/p>\n
The unemployment rate dropped from 5.2% in June to 5% in July, according to the state\u2019s Employment Security Department. Unemployment had been rising steadily in Washington from a low of 4.3% in January of last year.<\/p>\n
The state also added around 21,00 jobs, the largest uptick in hiring that Washington has seen since January 2026.<\/p>\n
The new report shows growth particularly in the service industry, with the biggest gains in education, health services, and leisure and hospitality.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a sector that we’ve really been watching,\u201d said Annelise Vance-Sherman, chief labor economist for the Employment Security Department.<\/p>\n
She added that leisure and hospitality had seen a steady addition of jobs since May, adding a total of around 10,700 jobs, particularly in food and drinking establishments.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do think that the World Cup had a lot to do with that,\u201d Vance-Sherman said.<\/p>\n
State economists won\u2019t know whether the gains are temporary until August jobs are tallied next month, she said.<\/p>\n
State and federal government jobs saw the biggest losses in the last month, shedding about 1,400 positions, followed by cuts in the mining and logging industries.<\/p>\n
The employment data comes on the heels of a statewide economic revenue forecast released in late June which predicted slower-than-expected job growth for the year. The fresh jobs report likely wouldn\u2019t sway that economist forecast much, said Dave Reich, chief economist for the revenue council.<\/p>\n
The national unemployment rate also decreased slightly in the past month, from 4.2% to 4.1%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The latest jobs report for Washington state shows slight hiring growth and a dip in unemployment for the first time in more than a year and a half. Though unemployment in the state remains higher than the national average, labor economists called the news \u201cbright\u201d and credited World Cup-related hiring for the bump. The unemployment<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[3259,3256,3254,3257,3255,3258,3252,3250,3253,3251],"class_list":["post-37833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-washington","tag-washington","tag-washington-dining","tag-washington-food","tag-washington-grocery-stores","tag-washington-restaurants","tag-washington-state","tag-washington-state-dining","tag-washington-state-food","tag-washington-state-grocery-stores","tag-washington-state-restaurants"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dc\/117359746995464575","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}