There's good news and bad in the Port of Tacoma's new final cargo report card for 2008.

The bad: Total container numbers fell 3.3 percent from 2007 to 1,861,358 20-foot container units. That's the second down year in a row for the port's container business. That business peaked in 2006 with 2,067,185 container units.

The good: Tacoma's container decline was substantially less than the West Coast's major ports, Los Angeles and Long Beach. In Long Beach, container volume declined 11 percent. In neighboring Long Angeles, container numbers dropped 15.2 percent for the year.

The ports blamed the slowing economy for the decline.

The bad again: Breakbulk cargo fell 4.1 percent, and auto imports dropped by nearly 16,000 cars or 9.1 percent from the year before.

The good once more: Grain exports jumped by 13.6 percent to 6.785 million short tons. Total vessel calls increased 16.5 percent to 1,365 last year, the highest in recent history.

And the bad: Gypsum tonnage dropped by almost 23 percent last year. Intermodal lifts fell 15.2 percent.

The good news: Total tonnage handled through the port increased 3.6 percent in 2008 to 20,269,494, the port said.

It's a long shot, but the Foss Waterway Development Authority is rushing to get a regulatory paperwork jam cleared away so that it take the first steps toward adding a new kayak float in the waterway's south end.

The authority staff, which got its board's approval to proceed Wednesday night, has to get the underwater portion of the project done by Feb. 14 or the project could be delayed for months.

That's the day the construction window closes for this winter for such in-water projects. After that date, such projects are prohibited because of potential damage to salmon migration.

Authority deputy director Su Dowie told the board she has discovered enough money from two sources to get the project done. But she needs final approval from the Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency to proceed as well as an agreement from utilities that helped finance the cleanup of that end of the waterway.

The float will be held in place by elastic cords that tie is to concrete pads that rest on the bottom of the waterway.

Those pads, unlike pilings or anchors, won't penetrate the clean soil that caps the polluted material on the bottom of the waterway.

Dowie says getting the job done in such a short time is problematic, but its worth a try to get the float operational before the weather warms.

The float in question is on the west side of the waterway just south of the cable-stayed bridge. Another float for human-powered boats is already under construction on the east side of the waterway.

This from Kelly Kearsley:

Finding a job in Washington isn’t as easy as it used to be.

The state Employment Security Department reports today that the number of job vacancies decreased dramatically from spring to fall of last year. Washington employers had 50,593 open positions in the fall of 2008 compared to 74,744 open positions in the spring of the same year. That’s a 32 percent dip.

“We saw a very sharp drop in a very short time in our state,” said Greg Weeks, Employment Security’s director of labor-market information. “But the report shows that, despite a weak economy, firms are still hiring.”

Industries reporting a need for workers included health care, retail, and hotel and food services. The occupation most in the demand was registered nurses.

In Pierce County, the Multicare Health System has 200 openings. Kim Giglio, director of recruitment, said the health system is not hiring as many people as it has in the past, but there are still many openings.

“We will likely hire at least 1,000 people this year,” Giglio said Wednesday.

Pam Cone, director of The Business Connection, said that despite the weak economy, some employers are still filling jobs. The Business Connection provides companies with employee recruitment services. Cone noted that The Census Bureau plans on hiring 3,000 people in the Pierce County area by early summer. She’s seen jobs available in government as well as security firms.
Job seekers can learn more about prevalent occupations and search more than 14,000 jobs listed online at www.go2worksource.com or by visiting a local WorkSource center. There are 68 WorkSource offices across Washington including one in downtown Tacoma.

The aftereffects of last fall's 58-day Boeing Machinists Union strike are still being felt at the company and at its airline customers.

American Airlines reported this week that it will take delivery of seven fewer Boeing 737-800 aircraft this year than it had planned.

Boeing is still catching up on deliveries it missed during the two-month strike when all production was shut down.

American's new delivery schedule calls for 29 deliveries of the Renton-built planes this year compared with 36 scheduled. In 2010, the Fort Worth-base airline will receive 39 737s compared with the 40 it had hoped to receive. In 2011, Boeing will deliver the final eight aircraft postponed from prior years.

The delayed delivery schedule may be a benefit to American which lost $340 million in the fourth quarter of 2008 and whose ticket bookings are down.

The seven aircraft decrease in deliveries will mean an additional one percent decrease in the airline's traffic capacity in 2009.