ALMOST 40,000 PEOPLE OUT OF WORK IN SNO COUNTY!

This morning the ‘bought and paid for’ Everett Herald (read my piece on the newspapers being bailed out by the State of Washington here) ran probably one of the worst pieces of reporting in Washington State Newspaper history with a major story buried in the Business Section declaring that the County’s unemployment rate was 9.5%. This number comes from the State of Washington Department of Employment Security and is generally referred to as the U 3 number! They didn’t give us the U 6 number, which is the REAL unemployment rate in the county.

Without getting into a lot of detail here I would invite those of you who might be interested in looking at how these unemployment numbers are MANDATED by the Federal Government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics please read at your leisure this LINK. The U 3 number is the Official unemployment rate based on new filers for unemployment benefits and those whose benefits have yet to run out. The U 6 number includes those who have given up finding a job, have no benefits, have had to take marginal jobs to pay their bills, and laid off temporary contractors who are rarely included in the U 3 number. So what that means is that the U 6 number is statistically about 6 to 7% more than the U 3 number and that brings us to a REAL unemployment rate of 16.2% OR 37,456 vs. the numbers from the state that say that that number is 9.5% or 21,965 out of work in Snohomish County.

Just how bad are things in Snohomish County? Well, it has a much higher unemployment rate than King County and THINGS ARE GOING TO GET MUCH WORSE! I had a conversation yesterday with a major contractor involved with the building trades in Sno County and he said this and I quote: “Before the end of this year and possibly this summer about 75% of all sub-contractors in Snohomish County will effectively be out of business and they will permanently lay off THOUSANDS!” Un quote.

At this end of this last week, word leaked out that Boeing in Everett at Paine Field may be considering laying off another 3,000 folks this summer and putting another group of workers on ‘reduced hours’. This comes as Boeing continues to gradually lay off the 5,000 folks that has been previously announced. So these layoffs will also have a major impact.

All I can say is this: UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY IN THE COUNTY WILL BE A RED HOT ISSUE IN THIS NOVEMBER’S ELECTION. Democrats on the Snohomish County Council that are up for re-election are in SERIOUS political trouble in this OFF YEAR ELECTION! STAY TUNED!