There’s more good economic news this week for Washington – and more bad news for those folks who get their kicks by whining ad nauseam that the Evergreen State is a terrible place to live, work, own a business, and raise a family. You know the ones.
According to new data compiled by Manufacturers News Inc. (MNI), and corroborated by numbers from the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, manufacturing jobs in Washington shot up by 2.3 percent between February 2013 and February 2014. That’s three times the national rate of increase, and translates into 7,228 new paychecks for Washington families, and according to the NAM, manufacturing paychecks tend to be extremely nice, averaging nearly $83,000 per year. That’s $35,000 above the average salary in other non-farm private-sector industries.
MNI’s figures also tell us that 6,677 manufacturers call Washington home, employing almost 310,000 workers – and that those manufacturers are spread throughout the state.
“Manufacturers in Washington are making large strides across many sectors,” said Tom Dubin, president of MNI, an industrial publishing company based in Evanston, Illinois. “The state’s investments in technology and innovation combined with a favorable tax climate should continue to support this upward trend.”
That’s a good way to trend, and it continues an upward path charted by Washington’s manufacturers since the Great Recession bottomed out four years ago. The manufacturing industries leading that trend here in Washington during the past year were transportation equipment, food products, industrial machinery, rubber and plastics, fabricated metals, electronics, lumber and wood, and chemicals. On the downside, paper products and printing/publishing jobs declined over the past 12 months.
Before we go, let’s repeat that last sentence from Tom Dubin, just to make sure it doesn’t go unnoticed. And note that it’s the objective statement of a private-sector executive who deals with cut-and-dried data, not a talking point:
“The state’s investments in technology and innovation combined with a favorable tax climate should continue to support this upward trend.”
That’s an astute fellow.