Topeka ? Unemployment continued to decline in March, despite continued loss of manufacturing jobs in the already struggling aviation industry, state officials said Thursday.

According to Department of Human Resources figures, Kansas’ unemployment rate dropped to 4.9 percent in March, down from a revised 5 percent in February. Nationally, the jobless rate was 5.8 percent in March.

However, the blight on the March report was the loss of 1,200 manufacturing jobs, which has been slow to emerge from the 2001 recession.

“A large part of it is the Wichita situation,” said Bill Layes, chief of labor market information.

Wichita was the only metropolitan statistic area of the state to see its jobless rate increase in March, rising to 6.1 percent from February’s 5.9 percent. A year ago the rate was 6.4 percent. Manufacturing has shed nearly 6,000 jobs in the past 12 months in the Wichita area.

Douglas County’s rate dropped from 4.4 percent to 4.3 percent. Topeka and Kansas City also reported slight declines.

Overall, nonfarm payroll increased by 4,500 jobs to 1.33 million in March, with construction, nonteaching jobs at schools and hospitality and leisure sectors leading the way.

First-time jobless claims dropped by 1,900 to 14,882, Layes said, but was still more than 3,600 claims higher than the March 2002 figure.

Layes said unemployment has averaged 5.1 percent for the first nine months of the state’s fiscal year, compared to 4.6 percent for the same period in 2002. Economists forecast that Kansas will begin to see additional job creation in the last quarter of 2003 and early 2004, Layes said.