The slow incremental increases last year and first half of 2026 signal ‘an increasingly challenging labor market for job seekers’

Jerry Cornfield
Washington State Standard

Washington’s unemployment rate held steady at 5.2% in May even as the economy added roughly 10,000 jobs, its highest one-month gain this year.

“A strong month of growth is welcome following two consecutive months of employment losses, but it doesn’t signal any meaningful shifts on its own,” Anneliese Vance-Sherman, chief labor economist for the Employment Security Department, said Wednesday.

The unemployment rate was unchanged from April. It was 4.5% in May 2025 and the slow incremental increases last year and first half of 2026 signal “an increasingly challenging labor market for job seekers,” she said. The national unemployment rate was 4.3% last month.

Washington gained a seasonally adjusted increase of 10,600 jobs in May, the department reported. Of those, 4,800 were in the leisure and hospitality industries, followed by manufacturing with 2,200 jobs and construction with 1,600. Public sector employment gained 1,600 jobs.

This marked the largest one-month surge since December, when 10,100 jobs were added, and last May, when the total reached 10,500 jobs.

Sherman said it was hard to pin down a single reason for the hiring up in the leisure and hospitality industries, though she acknowledged some businesses might have ramped up staffing in advance of the World Cup.

Last month’s bounce comes after the state recorded a combined loss of 8,700 jobs in the months of March and April. However, even with last month’s surge, the number of jobs in Washington decreased by 7,700 jobs, or 0.2%, since May 2025.

In the meantime, a report issued Monday by Washington’s chief economist, Dave Reich, says job growth has been weaker than expected since the release of the last revenue forecast in February. And, he noted initial claims for unemployment benefits were 5,972 in the week ending June 6, up from 5,006 in the prior week.

The job market and unemployment claims are among a multitude of data points Reich will use in constructing the next revenue forecast due out June 26.

This report was first published by the Washington State Standard.