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Slowly but surely, the economy is continuing its slow recovery in Washington state. The State Employment Security Department announced that the unemployment rate was an estimated 6.8 percent in May, which marks the first time the number has dropped below 7 percent since November 2008. That’s also a decrease of 1.6 percent from the same time last year.

unemployment2Seattle’s unemployment rate, meanwhile, dropped 0.4 percent from last month to 4.7 percent. Certainly, the tech industry in Seattle is helping to drive that as companies like Amazon.com, Apptio, Tableau Software, Zillow and Zulily continue to hire engineers and developers at aggressive rates.

The state added 4,100 jobs last month, and so far, Washington has regained about 79 percent — 162,100 — of the 205,000 jobs it lost during the recession.

Previously on GeekWireSurvey: Washington state No. 1 in software publishing jobs, ranks third in tech wages

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