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Marce Edwards is the business editor. She has been at The News Tribune for seven years and has written about technology and big businesses in the South Sound including Weyerhaeuser and Russell. Before moving to Tacoma, she worked at The Idaho Statesman in Boise. She is a Northwest native who likes to garden and refuses to use an umbrella. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and two kids.
C.R. Roberts is a Tacoma native. Before joining The News Tribune, he worked as a freelance writer and part-time cowhand on a cattle ranch in Northern Idaho. He writes about small business, personal finance and other business issues.
John Gillie writes about the aerospace and airline industries, commercial development and consumer issues. During his 30-year-tenure at The News Tribune he has covered issues as diverse as the Native American fishing rights disputes, crime and the courts, the wood products industry and energy. He lived in Tacoma with his family for 25 years, but now lives in Kent because his wife heads a five-state non-profit foundation headquartered in Ballard, and it only seemed a sensible compromise to make considering their workplaces are 40 miles apart.
Kelly Kearsley has been a business reporter at The News Tribune since 2005. She covers the Port of Tacoma and international trade. Being born and raised in Spokane she’s used to living in cities with inferiority complexes and, in fact, prefers it. Prior to working at The News Tribune, she spent three years as a reporter for The Bulletin in Bend, Oregon and another year working stints for The Associated Press and Seattle Times. She graduated from Pacific Lutheran University. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and miniature schnauzer.
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The unemployment rate jumped up half a percentage point to 5.7 percent in Pierce County in May, but economists say the jobs picture here remains healthy.
"Historically, it's still a very decent rate," said Employment Security Department regional economist Paul Turek.
"The job market is getting a little thinner, but were still relatively OK," he said.
The present seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate in Pierce County is still substantially under the rate hit during the recession of 1990 and 1991 when local unemployment touched 7.6 percent.
And it's nowhere near the 9 percent Pierce County experienced in 2003 after the 9-11 layoffs in the aerospace industry.
Under the old definition of "full employment", 4 percent to 6 percent, the present situation would have been considered a full employment, said Turek.
Under a more modern definition that considers the advantages modern technology gives to job seekers, Pierce County's unemployment rate would be somewhat below the 4 to 5 percent "full employment" range, he said.
Turek said month-to-month changes should be considered in a broader picture.
"We're still doing a pretty good job here, especially considering what's happening in the rest of the country," he said.
While the year-to-year unemployment rate is up in Pierce County from 4.4 percent to 5.7 percent, 7,140 people were employed in Pierce County this May than in May a year ago.
On a statewide seasonally adjusted basis, Washington's unemployment rate at 5.3 percent is still below the nationwide average seasonally adjusted of 5.5 percent.
Both statewide and Pierce County, weakness in the construction industry was a contributor to higher unemployment numbers. Education and health care remain strong.
