Workforce Explorer Washington has a tag line which reads, “Quality labor market information to help you make informed decisions”. Within the home page for Workforce Explorer you will find information on statewide economic conditions, links to various reports, a description of What’s New and now available, and both a set of quick links and a section titled, How do I Find? Tabs across the top of the page take you to the Career Center, WA Labor Market, or Publications and Reports sections. You can also set up an account on Workforce Explorer and a page, My Labor Market Info, that allows you to save the information you use most in one convenient, personalized page.

Clicking on the WA Labor Market tab takes you to a new page with a similar arrangement of features. Here you will find statewide labor market information, the same set of quick links as found on the home page, a new set of How do I Find links, and various reports. You will also find a section titled “Plain Talk” and a column on the left side of the page which allows you to tour what is found on this page.

If you continue down the left hand column, you may select from local area information, occupation information, industry information, and training information. Selecting Explore Local Area brings two additional choices, the Local Area Profile and Compare Area. The Local Area Profile shows an overview of labor market information in a particular area within the state. You may select information by county or for the entire state.

Selecting Cowlitz County, for example, the profile gives a short descriptive write-up on the county. That is followed by a number of tables summarizing labor force and unemployment statistics for the county, a list of fastest growing occupations, wage information for various occupations, and near the bottom of the page, a list of training providers both private and public in nature. In the case of Cowlitz County, specific information for the county is not available in every instance so the report defaults to a larger region such as the Southwest Washington Workforce Development Area (WDA) or the Longview Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). The More button at the bottom of several of these tables takes you to more complete information and allows you to sort the data as in the case of Fastest Growing Occupations by occupation, employment changes, growth rate and other factors.

For those interested in general employment trends within a county, the range of wages associated with particular professions within the local area, and for a list of training providers on file with the site, local area profiles may be of interest. Similar information on occupational trends by region is available at Occupational Outlook 2004 – 2014. Please be aware that most information on the Workforce Explorer site is very current but other information is more dated.

If you know of great sites for local area employment information, share that information with others within the Washington library community by leaving a comment in response.