Gorge-wide Labor Market Information

2012 Monthly Labor Market Information (Excel Files only)

2011 Monthly Labor Market Information (Excel files only)

2010 Monthly Labor Market Information (Excel files only)

2009 Monthly Labor Market Information (Excel files only)

2008 Monthly Labor Market Information (Excel files only)

2007 Monthly Labor Market Information (Excel files only)

2006 Monthly Labor Market Information (Excel files only)

2005 Monthly Labor Market Information (Excel files only)

2004 Monthly Labor Market Information (Excel files only)

2003 Monthly Labor Market Information (Excel files only)

Determining County Unemployment Rates
from Scott Bailey, Washington State Economist
The national unemployment rate comes from a monthly survey of 60,000 households. The households are a random sample based on Census data. With so many households, the survey is very accurate, with the exception that it is slightly biased because the Census is slightly biased, undercounting low-income and non-white households.

An important thing about the survey is that it does not ask anything about unemployment claims. Someone is counted as unemployed if they didn't work in the past month, and they were available for work and engaged in some kind of job-seeking behavior, like sending in a job application. Only about one-third to one-half of the unemployed are receiving benefits.

In the state of Washington, there are 1,300 households in the monthly survey. Statistically, this is good enough to determine the unemployment rate over the year, but not on a monthly basis--there is too much fluctuation from one month to the next. So the monthly numbers are "smoothed" in a complex statistical process. Employment is smoothed using estimated nonfarm employment from our survey of businesses, and estimated agricultural employment. Unemployment is smoothed using unemployment claims data.

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