The Spokane area added far more jobs in both April and May than it had in any month since June 2001, the latest figures from the Washington state Department of Employment Security show.


Some 3,800 more people had jobs in May than in the year-earlier month, and 4,000 more were working this past April than in April 2003, the states non-farm industry employment figures show. Those were the first two months since June 2001 in which at least 3,800 more people were working than in the year-earlier month.


Those are pretty strong numbers, says William Dillingham, who until June 18 served as the departments labor area economist in Spokane.


In May, the latest month for which figures are available, 203,100 people had jobs in the Spokane area, compared with 199,300 people in May 2003. In April, 201,100 people were employed, up from 197,100 in April 2003.


Dillingham believes that the job growth will continue.


I think there are some strong indications that growth is here for the rest of the year and into next year, he says. The economy overall is picking up. At the same time, confidence is pretty fragile, because of the war in Iraq and the possibility of another terrorist attack on the U.S., he adds.


Until March of this year, when 3,300 more people were working than in the year-earlier month, the Spokane area hadnt added as many as 3,000 jobs in any month since June 2001.


Job growth had slowed in 2001 even before the terrorist attacks, which threw job numbers into a downward spiral here. The Spokane area lost jobs every month from October 2001 to December 2002, with the biggest drop in April 2002, when 5,200 fewer people were working than in the year-earlier month.


The improved numbers in March, April, and May of this year were both welcome and a sign that the Spokane-area economy might turn in an even better year in 2004 than had been expected, says Phil Kuharski, a retired securities executive whos still active as an economic analyst.


Some of us started off the year thinking we would add 2,000 or 2,500 jobs in terms of annual average employment, he says. We may end up closer to 4,000.


The better numbers still are smaller than whats been seen in strong years, when the Spokane area has added 7,000 to 9,000 jobs, but even though job gains havent approached those levels in 2004 yet, the big perspective is that things have really improved, Kuharski says.


They were improved in 2003, simultaneously as federal income-tax rates were cut and interest rates fell, he says. It would be real unusual for the economy not to have improved with the stimulus provided last year.


The non-farm industry employment numbers come from a survey of industrial insurance forms submitted by employers. Kuharski points out that a second jobs report, conducted by contacting households and asking people whether they have a job, has indicated that more county residents have jobs than at any time in our history. He adds, That was also true in 2003.


Dillingham, in a summary about the Spokane labor market in May, wrote that total employment here, as measured in the household survey, was up by nearly 7,400 jobs, to a total of 211,200 jobs. The unemployment rate, which is derived from the household survey, had fallen to 5.1 percent in May, down from 6.6 percent in May 2003.