On June 1, 1970, Seattle's unemployment rate is at 10 percent compared to a national average of 4.5 percent. The joblessness is the result of massive workforce reductions at the Boeing Co. during 1969-1970. Unemployment in Seattle will peak at 13.8 percent over the next two years. Not until 1977 will jobless rates for the city (7.2 percent) and the state (7.4 percent), be on a par with the rate (7 percent) for the rest of the country.
Unemployment is the percentage of the labor force out of work and actively seeking a job.
Sources:
Walt Crowley, Rites of Passage: A Memoir of the Sixties in Seattle, (Seattle: University of Washington, 1997), 287; The Seattle Times, June 12, 1977, pp. D-1, D-5.
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