When you’re investing money you want diversification - putting money into a lot of different things to reduce the risk of any one of them taking down your whole portfolio. The same is true with the economy. When we look at jobs numbers, we have lots of different industries, and that helps balance out losses in any one area. If one of them does badly in a given month, the hope is that one or more of the others is doing well enough to compensate.
It turns out that’s exactly what we see in Washington state lately.
Here are Five Fast Facts on the state’s jobs numbers:
- 💻 Tech Challenges - Tech has been suffering recently, with layoffs coming from all the big tech giants. It’s still a big driver of employment and revenue for the state, but it’s been a rough road lately. Apparently that sector is buggy… 🐞
- 🚧 Construction To The Rescue - Fortunately, there’s construction! This sector has been booming, adding over 4,000 jobs in the last month’s report. We might say they’re literally building the state’s economy!
- 💨 The Catch - The big addition likely isn’t sustainable, though. It’s probably due at least in part to completing projects that were already in process, government initiatives, and as a rebound effect from big losses in the previous month. We took a vote and it’s unanimous that we’ll still take the jobs now, thank you very much. 😉
- 🏨🩺 Other Winners - Two other industries – Education and health services, Leisure and hospitality – also gained almost 4,000 jobs combined, further helping to cover the losses from tech. It takes an economic village, right?
- 🤞 The Overall Picture - With big gains in a couple of industries more than making up for losses in several others, it’s a net win on the jobs front…for now.
🔥Bottom line: Even if it’s short-lived, we’ll still take the victories where we can get them. It’s better for jobs and that means better for Paychecks. Besides, we’re confident that Tech will come roaring back before too long.
What do you think about these job numbers?
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