SNOHOMISH COUNTY—Snohomish County has one of the lowest unemployment rates in Washington State according to the Washington State Employment Security Department’s monthly report, but Washington State in general still ranks higher than most states in the nation.

Snohomish County is currently tied with neighboring King County with a rate of 4.1%. On the opposite end, Ferry County has the highest unemployment rate in Washington at 11.9%.

In March of this year Washington attempted to tackle the unemployment rate leftover from the pandemic by adding 5,300 jobs but the statewide unemployment rate still rose to 4.8%.

The state is now tied with Illinois and New Jersey for having one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation only overshadowed by California (5.3%), Nevada (5.1%), and the District of Columbia (5.2%). North Dakota currently has the lowest unemployment rate in the country at 2.0%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Snohomish County has a total civilian workforce of approximately 455,229 with 436,340 currently employed and 18,889 being unemployed. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Snohomish County has a total population of 840,079.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics does not consider those who are retired, students, under workable age, those taking care of children or other family members, or those not seeking work as part of the workforce.

While the effects of the pandemic did pay its toll on unemployment and workforce, data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) and its Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC) indicate that individuals falling outside of the workforce has steadily been increasing since 2000. A large part of this is due to working-able people hitting retirement age but not entirely.

Stephanie Ferguson, Director, Global Employment Policy & Special Initiatives, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, stated that on a federal level there are simply more jobs than eligible workers to fill them. The latest data shows that there are about 8.5 million job openings in the U.S. but only about 6.5 million unemployed workers. In other words, if every unemployed worker found a job there would still be millions of open jobs leftover, so creating jobs may not be the easy fix.

At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, approximately 120,000 businesses nationwide were forced to temporarily close and more than 30 million workers were left without jobs. Now that things are stabilizing, Washington, as well as the rest of the country, attempted to tackle the residual unemployment rate by creating new jobs – 3.1 million of them, in fact, in just 2023 alone.

However, the overall number of those participating in the workforce has dropped. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, if the country had the same workforce as it did in 2020 when the pandemic hit, we would have more than two million more workers able to fill empty job positions.

So, what caused the workforce to shrink if not solely the pandemic? Based on a 2022 survey conducted by U.S. Commerce 66% of Americans who lost their full-time job during the pandemic reported that they are only somewhat active, or not active at all, in searching for a new job.

About half of Americans (49%) said they are not willing to take jobs that do not offer remote work, more than a quarter of Americans (26%) said it will no longer be necessary for them to return to work, nearly one in five altered their livelihood (17% have retired, 19% have transitioned to homemaker, and 14% are now working part-time), nearly a quarter (24%) said government stimulus packages have incentivized them not to return to work, and about 36% of the younger age group surveyed (25-34) said they have transitioned to focusing on personal growth rather than searching for a job, whether this be education, developing new skills, or training, etc.

In October of 2021, nearly 3 million Americans were forced into an early retirement. This is paired with the fact that older generations in the U.S. are steadily increasing partly due to younger generations not having as many children. 

Immigration and the nations crackdown on it also played a role. U.S. Census Bureau data shows that net international migration to the U.S. only contributed to a 247,000-person increase in the U.S. population between 2020 and 2021. The impact that immigration has had on U.S. population growth has dropped by 76% in recent years.

Other factors include a lack of access to affordable childcare services, a boom in new business startups of which many took advantage of the pandemic to open, and increased savings accounts (both from government stimulus packages paired with a decline in spending during the pandemic).

To address the issue of a dwindling work force, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched its America Works Initiative aimed at attracting eligible workers to reenter the workforce but more importantly retain jobs.

According to the Economic Alliance of Snohomish County there are approximately 244,484 jobs in the county spread throughout over 20,000 businesses.

The county, in its Future Workforce Alliance report, published March 2024, stated that labor force participation in Snohomish County has recovered to pre-pandemic levels, growing slightly from 2019 (67.3%) to 2022 (67.5%).

In April 2020, Snohomish County’s unemployment rate reached a peak of 20.2 percent. As of April 2022 (preliminary), the unemployment rate hit a record low 2.3 percent, according to the Employment Security Department.

Over half of all jobs in Snohomish County are concentrated in manufacturing (Aircraft industry), government, health care and social assistance, and retail trade sectors.

The average annual wage in Snohomish County is about $67 thousand. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a living wage in Snohomish County is $76,800 a year.

“Building on and delivering a gold-standard workforce development system that meets the needs of individuals and employers is one of Snohomish County’s top priorities,” said Executive Somers. “We are committed to working with our partners to build a workforce of the future that benefits everyone, not just a select few. I encourage residents and employers throughout Snohomish County to provide feedback on our Local Area Plan, and I’m grateful for the support of the Future Workforce Alliance and Workforce Snohomish in developing and implementing these efforts.”