The state Employment Security Department issued its employment report for March this morning. The preliminary estimate is that seasonally adjusted employment in Washington increased by 10,500 from January to February. The estimate of December to January job growth was revised up to gain of 2,600 jobs from the loss of 600 previously announced.

The preliminary estimate of March’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for the state is 5.9 percent. The estimate of February’s unemployment rate is unchanged at 6.3 percent.

All in all, this report is much stronger than the national report for March, which was released on April 3rd. However my normal caveat applies: preliminary employment estimates can be subject to large sampling errors. We will not be really certain about March employment until later in the year when actual job counts are available from unemployment insurance tax returns.

The March employment report is available here.