By Paul Roberts

The Seattle Times

For the third week running, Washington state saw fewer new claims for unemployment insurance, offering still more evidence that the state’s economy may be stabilizing after months of pandemic.

But with nearly 600,000 Washingtonians still filing weekly claims for unemployment benefits, the state’s job market has a long way to go before returning to pre-COVID-19 levels.

For the week ending August 8, the state saw 22,140 new, or initial, claims for regular unemployment insurance, for an 11.4% decline from the prior week, the state Employment Security Department (ESD) reported Thursday.

Nationally, initial claims fell 19%, to 963,000, the U.S. Labor Department said Thursday.

In Washington, the total number of people who depend wholly or in part on unemployment benefits, while also declining, remains at historic highs.

For the week ending August 8, the number of claims filed for all unemployment benefit categories was 571,410. That’s down 13% from the prior week, but still nearly twice the peak recorded during the Great Recession.

Further, while most parts of the economy saw a continued drop in new jobless claims, it was the opposite for manufacturing, which recorded a 42% increase, to 2,866 initial claims, ESD said.

Pink slips continue to go out. On Wednesday, HMS Host, a restaurant operator at airports and travel plazas, notified the state that it intends to permanently cut 297 positions, most of them in SeaTac, on Oct. 15.

On Thursday, the Kent location of Carlisle Interconnect Technologies, a manufacturer of fiber optic and other cable products and a Boeing supplier, announced it would close and permanently cut 595 jobs.