Regional unemployment stalled in August

WASHINGTON - New numbers show the unemployment rate in the region fell in August for the second straight month, but an expert does not expect the trend to continue.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics says the D.C. area still had the lowest unemployment rate in the country in August at 6 percent, down from 6.2 percent in July, not seasonally adjusted.

"We shouldn't read too much into it," says Stephen Fuller, director of the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University. "It sounds like good news, but we didn't add more jobs. In fact, we lost jobs in August.

"The fact that unemployment went down doesn't mean that unemployed workers found work. It probably means that they took a vacation."

Fuller says the region has been losing jobs for nine months now, and some people have been unemployed so long they've stopped looking. Also, companies don't tend to hire in August like they do in September.

What does Fuller expect the near future?

"We will begin to see some new hiring by the end of the year, but we're still losing jobs and I think that will continue."

Fuller thinks the region's unemployment rate will probably rise slightly in the next few months, although not as high as the 7 percent he recently predicted.

Fuller believes the D.C. region is in a 6- to 8-month recovery cycle, which will likely end in the spring. He predicts the job situation will look better by April, but between now and then, we'll have some ups and downs.

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