Growth in Blue Collar Jobs Continues in March

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As noted in this month’s CEPR Jobs Byte, the national unemployment rate ticked down to 4.5 percent in March. Overall job growth was just 98,000 for the month. Coupled with downward revision in the last two months, the three-month job growth average was 178,000.

At the national level, blue collar jobs once again saw some growth. Both the manufacturing and mining sectors saw growth of 11,000 jobs compared to last month. This is an increase of 0.8 and 2.1 percent respectively since last year. Construction added 6,000 jobs last month for a 7.5 percent increase since March of 2016. This is consistent with a CEPR analysis of trends in these sectors.

For an in-depth state-level analysis of the employment data in these sectors, we’ll be updating the Blue Collar jobs Tracker map later this month after the latest BLS numbers are released. You can find an analysis of the February jobs numbers here.