Job losses here in the current recession have progressed thus far along a timeline that's similar to that in the recession of 2001-2002, with the worst numbers coming in January and February this year as they did in January and February 2002, says Doug Tweedy, the Washington state Employment Security Department's regional labor market economist.

After February 2002, the unemployment rate started dropping as the economy improved, and this time around forecasters will be watching the March and April numbers closely for signs of improvement, Tweedy says.

"March and April are going to be signposts," says Tweedy. "Once we get the revised March and April numbers, we will start being better able to tell how the rest of the year will be."

Revised numbers for March will be available in April, and revised figures for April will be available in May, and one of the reasons forecasters will be looking at them so closely is that it's projected the economy will improve in the second half of 2009, he says.

"The forecasts (that) the first two quarters of the year will be the worst part, and then some recovery is forecast after that because of the stimulus package," Tweedy says.

Meanwhile, Tweedy says, some people who are out of work are becoming so discouraged by the adverse news reports on job losses that they're giving up hope of finding a job, and that's a mistake because some jobs are available.

"When people read the high unemployment numbers, they stop looking for work," he says. "We have 940 job postings right now" at the state WorkSource Spokane center.

"Even though the unemployment rate is high, the employers still have demands" for workers, not always to fill new jobs, but sometimes to replace workers who have left for new jobs or to retire, Tweedy says.

Tweedy urged people who are looking for jobs to search the department's www.go2worksource.com Web site to find job postings and to learn what kinds of jobs are in demand and what kinds are in decline.

Tweedy made his comments last week after the Employment Security Department released a preliminary nonagricultural wage and salary employment figure of 210,000 jobs in the Spokane area in February, down by 5,800 jobs from the February 2008 total. Also, preliminary figures from another survey put the unemployment rate here in February at 9.7 percent, up from 6.1 percent in the year-earlier month.

Tweedy cautions that the January and February job numbers "are volatile. They are the two lowest employment months of the year," he says.

He notes that when February's figures were released, the unemployment rate for January had been revised downward to 9.5 percent from the 9.6 percent preliminary rate released a month earlier, and the job total for January also was revised downward, to 210,900 from 212,000.

"You have to realize these are nonseasonally adjusted numbers," Tweedy says.

Meanwhile, the labor force here grew to 246,400 in February, up by 7,410 people from its size in February 2008.

It's customary for the labor force in a regional center such as Spokane to grow when jobs become harder to find because people will flock from smaller communities to search for work, Tweedy says. He says he's been following labor statistics, including those in Spokane, since the 1980s, and adds, "Every recession since then, we've had an in-migration" of people into Spokane.

"This time it's a little different," Tweedy says. "You're getting people from North Idaho and Eastern Washington, but you're starting to see older workers re-enter the market. They've lost some of their retirement income, and they're trying to go back to work."