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Is Manufacturing Back?

John Talton had a column titled “Manufacturing Is Back, But It Isn’t Pretty” in the Sunday Seattle Times. He sure got the “it isn’t pretty” part right. Here are three charts to give some perspective on how manufacturing has fared in and after the Great Recession:

Union Membership in Washington State, 2010

In January, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its annual report on union membership, which shows that Washington remains the 4th most highly unionized state in the nation. In 2010, 19.4 percent of Washington workers were members of a union. This is down from the 20.2 percent reported for 2009. Nationally, 11.9 percent of workers […]

Washington drops from 5th to 6th in Milken Science and Technology Index

The Milken Institute today released its 2010 State Science and Technology Index. Washington fell to 6th from the 5th place it held in the 2008 Milken rankings, while Utah moved up to 5th from 8th. Massachusetts, Maryland, Colorado and California retained the top four spots. The report notes: Washington slipped to sixth overall this year […]

S&P/Case-Shiller Indices Show Seattle-Area House Prices Continue to Decline

Standard and Poor’s today released the S&P/Case-Shiller House Price Indices for November. S&P’s Davd Blitzer noted:  “With these numbers more analysts will be calling for a double-dip in home prices.” As the chart below shows, Seattle’s first dip has yet to hit bottom. The November value of the seasonally adjusted index for Seattle is 140.77, […]

January Collections Report

The Office of the Economic and Revenue Forecast Council today released the January Economic and Revenue Update. The “headline” numbers show collections for the most recent month to be $36.9 million (3.4 percent) greater than anticipated under the November revenue forecast. Cumulatively, for the two months since the November forecast, revenues are $61.0 million (2.3 […]

December Revenue Collections Report

The Economic and Revenue Forecast Council’s monthly Economic and Revenue Update came out today. Revenue for the November 11 to December 10 collection period was $1,593.4 million, $24.1 greater than had been forecast. However, $20.9 million of the $24.1 million positive variance was due to one-time items such as audit payments and unclaimed property transfers […]

Unemployment rate climbs to 9.8 percent

Here’s the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner’s statement on the latest employment situation. In a nutshell, the commissioner reports: Nonfarm payroll employment was essentially unchanged in November (+39,000), and the unemployment rate edged up to 9.8 percent.  The jobless rate had been 9.6 percent in each of the prior 3 months.  Payroll employment has increased […]

One More Time: Revenue Forecast Reduced Again

The Economic and Revenue Forecast Council met yesterday and adopted revised forecasts of general fund revenues for the current (2009–11) and upcoming (2011–13) biennia. For 2009–11, the new forecast is $28,127 million, a decrease of $385 million from the September forecast. Of this decrease, $64 million is due to the passage of Initiative 1107, which […]

Economic and Revenue Update

The state Economic and Revenue Forecast Council (EFRC) yesterday issued its monthly Economic and Revenue Update (available here). The November Update is the second since EFRC’s September revenue forecast, and, as was the case in October, collections have come in above forecast. Major General Fund-State (GF-S) revenues for the October 11, 2010 – November 10, […]

Employment Growth: Metro Seattle vs. the Bay Area

The chart below compares job growth since 1990 in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont and San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Employment is seasonally adjusted and indexed so that in each case the January 1990 value is equal to 100. The Seattle MSA (comprising King, Snohomish and Pierce Counties) had 28.1 percent more jobs in August […]