Washington ESD unemployment rates - when was unemployment the highest historically?
I'm doing some research for a paper and trying to understand Washington state's unemployment history. Does anyone know when unemployment was at its peak here? I've been looking at Washington ESD data but it's hard to find comprehensive historical information. Was it during the 2008 recession or more recent? Also curious how Washington compared to national averages during those times. Any economists or policy folks here who might have insights?
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Dylan Mitchell
From what I remember, Washington state hit around 10.3% unemployment in early 2009 during the Great Recession. That was definitely the highest it had been since the early 1980s recession. The 2020 pandemic spike was brutal too but shorter-lived.
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Fatima Al-Maktoum
•Thanks! Do you know if that 2009 peak was higher than the national average at the time?
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Dylan Mitchell
•Yeah, Washington was actually slightly above the national average then. We got hit hard because of aerospace and construction slowdowns.
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Sofia Gutierrez
The 2020 pandemic was insane though. I remember Washington ESD couldn't handle all the claims flooding in. The unemployment rate shot up to like 16% in April 2020, which was way higher than 2009 even if it didn't last as long.
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Dmitry Petrov
•God that was a nightmare trying to file claims back then. The Washington ESD website kept crashing and you couldn't get through on the phone for weeks.
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Sofia Gutierrez
•Exactly! I spent hours every day trying to get through to Washington ESD. Eventually found this service called Claimyr that helped me reach an agent faster - they have this system that calls for you and connects you when they get through. Made a huge difference during that chaos.
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StarSurfer
•Never heard of that but sounds useful. How does it work exactly?
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Sofia Gutierrez
•You just go to claimyr.com and they handle the calling for you. There's a demo video at https://youtu.be/7DieNd3C7zQ that shows how it works. Way better than sitting on hold for hours.
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Ava Martinez
If you want historical data, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has Washington state unemployment going back decades. The early 1980s recession was brutal too - unemployment hit around 12% in 1982-1983.
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Fatima Al-Maktoum
•That's really helpful, I'll check BLS data. Didn't realize the 80s were that bad here.
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Miguel Castro
•My dad was laid off during that 80s recession. Said it was worse than 2008 because it lasted longer and there weren't as many safety nets.
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Zainab Abdulrahman
Don't forget the dot-com crash around 2001-2002. Washington got hammered because of all the tech companies here. Unemployment went from like 4% to over 7% pretty quickly.
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Connor Byrne
•Yeah that was rough. Lot of my friends in Seattle lost their jobs at startups that just vanished overnight.
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Zainab Abdulrahman
•The recovery was pretty quick though compared to 2008. Tech bounced back faster than manufacturing and construction did.
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Yara Elias
From an economic perspective, Washington's unemployment tends to be more volatile than the national average because we're so dependent on specific industries - aerospace, tech, agriculture. When those sectors get hit, our unemployment spikes higher but also recovers faster usually.
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Fatima Al-Maktoum
•That makes sense. So we're more boom-bust than other states?
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Yara Elias
•Exactly. Boeing layoffs can move the needle significantly for the whole state. Same with major tech company hiring freezes.
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QuantumQuasar
•Don't forget logging and fishing industries too. Those used to be huge drivers of unemployment cycles before tech took over.
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Keisha Jackson
I was working at Washington ESD during the 2008-2009 crisis and it was unreal. We went from processing maybe 20,000 claims a week to over 100,000. The system wasn't built for that volume.
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Paolo Moretti
•Wow, insider perspective! How did you guys handle it?
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Keisha Jackson
•Lots of overtime, temporary staff, and system upgrades. But honestly we were playing catch-up for months. The 2020 pandemic was even worse in terms of volume.
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Amina Diop
•I remember trying to call Washington ESD in 2020 and never getting through. Ended up using some service that called for me - Claimyr I think? Actually worked.
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Oliver Weber
For your research, you might want to look at seasonal unemployment patterns too. Washington has pretty significant seasonal variation because of agriculture and tourism.
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Fatima Al-Maktoum
•Good point! I hadn't thought about seasonal factors.
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Natasha Romanova
•Yeah, eastern Washington sees big spikes every winter when farm work dries up. Then it drops again in spring.
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NebulaNinja
The unemployment rate is one thing, but duration matters too. 2008-2009 had people unemployed for much longer periods than 2020. I know people who were out of work for over a year back then.
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Javier Gomez
•True, the pandemic unemployment was sharp but shorter for most people. 2008 was a slow grind.
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NebulaNinja
•Exactly. And the job quality when people finally found work was often much worse than what they'd had before.
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Emma Wilson
If you're looking at this academically, consider underemployment too. Lots of people took part-time or lower-paying jobs during recessions that don't show up in unemployment stats.
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Fatima Al-Maktoum
•That's a really good point for my analysis. The raw unemployment numbers don't tell the whole story.
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Malik Thomas
•Right, and gig economy stuff makes it even more complicated now. People driving for Uber aren't technically unemployed even if they can't find regular work.
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Isabella Oliveira
For what it's worth, current unemployment in Washington is pretty low by historical standards. We're sitting around 4-5% which is basically full employment from an economist's perspective.
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Ravi Kapoor
•Yeah but cost of living has gone crazy so even employed people are struggling more than they used to.
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Isabella Oliveira
•Absolutely true. Low unemployment doesn't mean economic hardship is gone, just that it looks different now.
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Freya Larsen
One thing to remember is that Washington ESD's data collection and methodology has changed over the decades, so comparing 1980s numbers to 2020s might not be perfectly apples-to-apples.
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Fatima Al-Maktoum
•Good methodological point. I'll need to account for that in my analysis.
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GalacticGladiator
•Yeah, plus who gets counted as unemployed has changed. Used to be if you hadn't looked for work in a while you weren't counted at all.
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Omar Zaki
My family's been in Washington for generations and from stories I've heard, the 1930s Depression was obviously the worst, but good luck finding reliable state-level data from that era.
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Chloe Taylor
•True, and Washington was still pretty rural then so the impact was different than modern recessions.
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Omar Zaki
•Right, lots of subsistence farming and barter economy that wouldn't show up in official statistics anyway.
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Diego Flores
Don't sleep on the 1970s either. Had some rough periods with stagflation and energy crises. Unemployment wasn't as high as later recessions but the economy was weird in different ways.
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Anastasia Ivanova
•My parents always talk about the late 70s being terrible economically. High unemployment AND high inflation at the same time.
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Diego Flores
•Exactly, stagflation was brutal. At least in recent recessions inflation stayed low during the worst unemployment.
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Sean Murphy
Just remember that unemployment statistics only tell part of the story. Labor force participation rates, wage growth, job quality - all that stuff matters too for understanding economic hardship.
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Fatima Al-Maktoum
•Definitely going to incorporate those factors. This has been incredibly helpful context from everyone!
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StarStrider
•Good luck with your research! Sounds like a fascinating project.
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Zara Malik
If you need help getting specific data from Washington ESD for your research, their customer service can be hard to reach. I've had good luck with Claimyr for getting through to actual people there when I needed claim information.
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Fatima Al-Maktoum
•Thanks for the tip! I might need to request some detailed historical data so that could be useful.
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Luca Marino
•What's Claimyr exactly? Seeing it mentioned a few times in this thread.
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Zara Malik
•It's a service that helps you get through to Washington ESD phone lines faster. Check out claimyr.com - they basically call for you and connect you when they reach an agent. Super helpful when you actually need to talk to someone there.
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