Tri Cities Washington Job Growth Defying the Rest of the Country

According to all sources in the Tri Cities area of Washington state, the area’s job growth continues to defy trends across the rest of the country.

Since May 2008, the Tri City area has gained 500 jobs in professional and business services, education and health services, leisure, hospitality and food services according to Dean Schau, the regional labor economist. Since this April, an additional 1200 jobs have been added, bringing the total nonfarm jobs to 95,200 at the end of May.

Federal stimulus money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) has been the driving force behind this growth of course, with almost $2 billion earmarked for the Hanford site and millions more towards transportation and technology projects. Lest anyone believe this is a one-time dump of funds, it is actually a slower trickle. The output will carry over the next 30 months.

“If you create 1,000 jobs, you’ll have 1,200 workers come in. That’s been like that for years” Schau went on to say. Gary Petersen, Tri-Cities Industrial Development Council Vice-President reinforced this when he said that each Hanford job creates about 1.8 other jobs in the community.

In April, Hanford contractor CH2M Hill held a job fair along with 11 subcontractors in Richland, WA for an initial 300 job openings. There were over 3500 resumes collected. The stimulus funds from ARRA is expected to create or save 4,000 jobs at the Hanford site and create 7,200 other jobs in the community. Since CH2M Hill is required by federal rulings to subcontract out 40 percent of their jobs, and most of those jobs will be filled by locally-owned companies, “That money will have a real impact on the community, not just at the site” Petersen said.

The unemployment rate in Benton and Franklin counties dropped from 7.7 percent in April to 7.2 percent in May. In contrast, Washington state’s unemployment rate increased to 9.4 percent in May from the 9 percent April rate.

In addition, corporate companies are beginning to notice the area, which will further diversify the economic base of the Tri Cities. Cascade Natural Gas recently announced it is moving its main office to the Tri Cities from Seattle.

All these new jobs will have a heavy impact on the area’s housing market- both home sales and short-term housing such as apartments and RV park rentals.

The April apartment survey conducted by Crown Property Management showed all three cities, Richland, Kennewick and Pasco, with an occupancy rate topping 96%, and the local RV parks are near capacity.

The local real estate market has been severely tested. With builders’ credit lines tied up in spec homes, the demand for new construction has been unmet, resulting in a run on resale homes.

Members of the Tri City Home Team, over the past 4 weeks, have seen many of the resale home sales involved in multiple-offer situations, and their home listings have experienced a sharp spike in the number of showings.

“If they’ve been sitting on the fence up till now, they’d better get (their) homes listed now while we’re seeing this seller’s market” said Daryl Myers with the Tri City Home Team.