Despite Glimmers of Recovery, Risks Remain and Joblessness Persists

Here's some good news. Arun Raha, head of the state economic and revenue forecast council, continues to be bullish on our state. The Olympian reports on Raha's speech at the Cowlitz Economic Development Council's annual meeting.

In response to the worldwide recession, governments in other nations have enacted 708 stimulus measures worth trillions of dollars to stimulate spending and growth. Most of those countries are slowly recovering together, and that puts export-friendly Washington in a position to come back more quickly than other states, said Arun Raha, executive director of the state's Economic and Revenue Forecast Council.

"If exports are growing back, Washington state does well," said Raha.

As he has regularly, Raha acknowledges risks, singling out commercial real estate and a tighter credit market, and continued high unemployment.

Which brings up this sobering graph from Calculated Risk.

Read the commentary at the Calculated Risk blog.

This graph shows the job losses from the start of the employment recession, in percentage terms (as opposed to the number of jobs lost). The current employment recession is the worst recession since WWII in percentage terms, and 2nd worst in terms of the unemployment rate (only early '80s recession with a peak of 10.8 percent was worse).

And we're not out of the woods yet. This is no time to be taking risks with recovery by raising the cost of adding jobs (workers' comp premium hikes, higher UI taxes, expensive new mandates and regulations). Let your legislator know you expect them to focus on stimulating job creation and investment.