Job growth in Spokane and Kootenai counties is expected to slow in 2024, following a year during which the employment market outperformed expectations. 

Grant Forsyth, chief economist at Avista Corp., is projecting employment growth of less than 2% next year, which would be just under the long-range employment-growth annual average.

"That doesn't mean an outright recession," Forsyth says of the 2024 jobs forecast, "but we should be to the point where we see the economy soften."

For 2023, Forsyth and many other economists predicted a recession would occur in the second half of the year. With that expectation, he had predicted little to no job growth this year. 

A recession never materialized, however, and employment rose by 2% in Spokane and Kootenai counties combined, according to his analysis. 

"I was sure we would go into and leave a mild recession," he says. "That didn't happen. The economy absorbed the (Federal Reserve) rate increases better than I expected." 

Doug Tweedy, a regional economist for the Washington state Employment Security Department who covers northeastern Washington, says the Spokane Metropolitan Statistical Area gained 5,000 jobs through the first 11 months of this year. 

Employers in the private sector created about 4,000 of those jobs, with the balance of the growth occurring in government positions. 

The 11-month average for total employment in the MSA rose to 268,700, a record number for the region, Tweedy says. The average jobless rate through November is 4.3%, which is historically low, he says. 

"I think we're benefitting from the diversity in types of jobs," Tweedy says. "We can't just point to one sector. It seems to be a number of sectors that are enjoying growth."

While most sectors are adding jobs, health care accounts for a large chunk of the increase. Also, while there is volatility in the restaurant business, leisure and hospitality job counts have returned to pre-pandemic levels in the Spokane area. 

One sector that has experienced some softness is the finance/insurance sector, mostly involving slight job reductions at call centers, Tweedy says. 

In the current environment, labor shortages continue to complicate expansion in a number of sectors, including health care, manufacturing, transportation, warehousing, and construction. 

"One of the things that's going to hold us back is the inability to hire people for open positions," Forsyth says.