The state Employment Security Department released the Monthly Employment Report yesterday. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’s preliminary estimate, the state added 3,300 jobs from February to March. The January to February estimate was revised up by 600 to show a gain 4,800 jobs. The preliminary estimate of the March unemployment rate is 8.3 percent, as is the revised estimate of the February rate. The ESD press release is here, while the full report is here.

As I have noted previously, these estimates are based on surveys that are subject to considerable sampling error. We will have a much better understanding of the March employment situation in six months, when job counts from the unemployment insurance tax system are available.

The Seattle Times has a nice article on manufacturing today (Manufacturing Propels State’s Job Growth).

Manufacturing is on an upswing in the U.S., driven by the lower dollar and the high productivity of American labor. Many manufacturers have discovered that producing in China is not as cheap it looks and that there are advantages to locating factories closer customers. As this chart shows, over the last two years, manufacturing’s share of state employment has expanded from 9.2 percent to 9.7 percent. For the nation as a whole, manufacturing’s share is up a tenth of a percentage point over the period, from 8.9 percent to 9.0 percent.

As the Seattle Times profile of Terex Aerial Platforms Americas illustrates, the aerospace sector is only part of the story on Washington manufacturing. Non-aerospace manufacturing employment has grown 5.9 percent in Washington over the last two years, greater than the 4 percent growth of overall manufacturing for the nation as a whole.

The sales tax exemption for manufacturing machinery and equipment deserves some of the credit for this.