Washtenaw County's unemployment rate falls as job market remains stable
Washtenaw County's unemployment rate fell to 6.5 percent in February, according to statistics released today by the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth.
The rate fell from 6.9 percent in January and 8.5 percent in February 2010.
The county continues to enjoy the best job market of Michigan's 83 counties, as measured by the jobless rate. The next best county was Clinton at 7.4 percent. Sixty-nine counties have double-digit unemployment rates, including Oakland at 10.2 percent, Macomb at 11.8 percent and Wayne at 12.7 percent.
The number of Washtenaw County residents with jobs in February was 170,400, which is up from 168,900 in January and 166,600 in February 2010. The number of unemployed residents in February was 11,900, down from 15,400 a year earlier.
The number of jobs based in Washtenaw is 194,200, up 200 from a year earlier and down 200 from a month earlier.
State officials reported that few sectors added or shed many jobs from January to February, meaning the job market was relatively stable. Retailers, however, shed about 400 jobs, which reflects "normal seasonal patterns as retail trade typically continue to record post-holiday job declines into February," the state said.
"In terms of the number of payroll jobs, they were pretty stable," said Mark Reffitt, a DELEG analyst. "They were pretty much unchanged."
The county's workforce — the number of employed county residents and the number of unemployed residents who are looking for a job — was 182,300 in February, up from 182,000 a year earlier.
Contact AnnArbor.com's Nathan Bomey at (734) 623-2587 or nathanbomey@annarbor.com. You can also follow him on Twitter or subscribe to AnnArbor.com's newsletters.
Comments
KJMClark
Fri, Apr 1, 2011 : 11:24 a.m.
The report itself is at <a href="http://www.michigan.gov/dleg/0,1607,7-154--253583--,00.html" rel='nofollow'>http://www.michigan.gov/dleg/0,1607,7-154--253583--,00.html</a> Actually, that's surprisingly good news. It looks like it's mostly seasonal factors though. "The monthly survey of employers indicated that seasonally unadjusted payroll jobs in Michigan rose by 30,000 or 0.8 percent in February to 3,838,000. A seasonal gain in government employment (+14,000) gave a boost to the overall job count. Local government education (+9,000) and state government education (+5,000) jobs advanced with the continued return of students to colleges, universities and local schools after the holiday break. The gains in local government education were evident statewide. "The state's private sector also recorded overall job gains in February led by a 17,000 increase in professional and business services. Other private sector job changes over the month were seasonal and included gains in private education (+6,000) offset by declines in construction (-5,000) and retail trade (?5,000). Other private sector industry categories were little changed in February." But as Nathan points out, there was a slight decrease in jobs in Washtenaw county, though there was an increase in jobs that people in Washtenaw county commute to. But what the heck is "state and local government education", and why does it increase this time of year? That sounds like teaching positions and support staff, but I can't think of a reason those jobs would increase this time of year.
CynicA2
Fri, Apr 1, 2011 : 7:18 a.m.
Yeah, right!... Another balmy Bomey outlook.
Brian Kuehn
Fri, Apr 1, 2011 : 11:22 a.m.
Nice to see your record continues intact.