YAKIMA — A smaller labor force in Grant County contributed to a drop in the unemployment rate between March 2016 and March 2017.

The unemployment rate dropped from 8.6 percent in March 2016 to 8.1 percent in March 2017, said Don Meseck, regional labor economist for the Washington Department of Employment Security. Following a traditional trend, unemployment dropped more than a point between February and March 2017, from 9.6 percent in February.

“The civilian labor force contracted modestly while the number of unemployed residents decreased rapidly,” Meseck wrote. “Although a shrinking labor force is just about never good economic news, a decline in the number of unemployed residents is.”

The average annual unemployment rate increased by one-tenth of 1 percent between 2015 and 2016.

However, “job growth still has been sluggish in Grant County” when compared with the statewide average. Grant County nonfarm employment increased each month between April 2016 and March 2017, but at a slower pace than statewide, he said.

“This March, Grant County employers provided 28,520 jobs, a 130-job increase from the 28,390 recorded in March 2016.” That was much lower than the statewide average, he said.

The transportation, warehousing and private utilities sector added 90 new jobs between March 2016 and March 2017, an 8.5 percent increase. That sector also added jobs between February and March 2017.

The wholesale trade sector includes data centers. It “has not only been growing year-over-year for the past 14 months, it has been growing at rates faster than Washington (the statewide average) in each of those months, February 2016 through March 2017.”

Construction jobs have increased for the past nine months, from July 2016 to March 2017, he said. “This March, construction tallied 1,140 jobs countywide, a 30-job and 2.7 percent increase from March 2016.”

The news was not as good in the durable goods manufacturing sector. The industry “has posted year-over-year losses for the past 17 months, November 2015 through March 2017. Between the Marches of 2016 and 2017, durable goods manufacturing fell 5.8 percent, a 120-job downturn.” That follows the statewide trend; jobs in durable goods manufacturing in Washington have been dropping for the past 16 months.

But the wholesale and retail trade sectors both posted job gains. Wholesale trade jobs rose by 4.7 percent, and retail trade jobs rose by 1.2 percent.