This is the third store for Midwest Vacuums, with the others in the Waldo district of Kansas City and in Lee’s Summit, Missouri. The store sells all types of vacuums, including uprights, canisters, central vacuums, and something called backpack vacuums. (That’s odd. My son’s backpack looks like it has a science project growing in it, but we just use a regular vacuum on it.) The store also sells steam mops, air purifiers, and a host of cleaning and vacuuming accessories.

A big part of the store’s business is vacuum cleaner repair. Degondea said the business repairs all brands of vacuum cleaners. She said often times customers who bring in vacuums for repairs eventually become the customers who buy new vacuums from her store. She said that’s how small vacuum shops have been able to stay in business despite big box retailers getting into the vacuum selling game.

“Our main customer is typically the customer who is tired of buying cheap vacuums and having them repaired,” Degondea said. “They sit down and do a little research and find out there are other options out there.”

The Lawrence store also continues to sell some sewing machines, but Degondea said she hasn’t made a decision about whether that will be a long-term part of the business. Her Kansas City stores do not sell sewing machines. She said Pinegar is working with the store part time to handle the sewing machine part of the business.

In other news and notes from around town:

• March brought some new jobs both for Kansas and Lawrence, although the new numbers show most of Lawrence’s job growth continues to come from government job growth rather than private sector gains.

Here’s a look at some job numbers as recently reported by the Kansas Department of Labor.

Unemployment rates

• Kansas: 4.0 percent in March, down from 4.5 percent in March 2015

• Lawrence: 3.4 percent in March, down from 3.9 percent in March 2015

• Topeka: 4.1 percent in March, down from 4.8 percent in March 2015

• Wichita: 4.5 percent in March, down from 5.0 percent in March 2015

• Kansas City: 3.8 percent in March, down from 4.3 percent in March 2015

• Manhattan: 3 percent in March, down from 3.6 percent in March 2015

Job totals (not seasonally adjusted)

• Kansas: 1.391 million, down 0.1 percent from March 2015

• Lawrence: 53,600, up 0.2 percent from March 2015

• Manhattan: 46,900, up 5.4 percent from March 2015

• Topeka: 109,700, down 0.2 percent from March 2015

• Wichita: 296,400, up 0.7 percent from March 2015

• Kansas City: 457,900, up 0.4 percent from March 2015

As you can see, Manhattan — Lawrence’s sister community in many ways — was the job engine for the state in March. Not only did it have the highest percentage growth by a lot, it added 2,400 jobs over the course of the year, which was more than any other metro area in the state. Lawrence added 100 jobs during that time period.

Goods producing jobs

Here’s a look at jobs that encompasses manufacturing and other industrial jobs that produce items.

• Kansas: 222,100, down 3.1 percent from March 2015

• Lawrence: 5,200, down 3.7 percent from March 2015

• Manhattan: 5,400, up 1.9 percent from March 2015

• Topeka: 12,700, down 0.8 percent from March 2015

• Wichita: 67,300, down 1.3 percent from March 2015

• Kansas City: 49,200, down 1 percent from March 2015

Service producing jobs

These are jobs in areas such as finance, leisure and hospitality, business services, trade and technical jobs, and other jobs that primarily provide a service rather than produce a good. These numbers also include government jobs, and I’ll provide more details on those in a moment.

• Kansas: 1.169 million, up 0.5 percent from March 2015

• Lawrence: 48,400, up 0.6 percent from March 2015

• Manhattan: 41,500, up 5.9 percent from March 2015

• Topeka: 97,000, down 0.1 percent from March 2015

• Wichita: 229,100, up 1.4 percent from March 2015

• Kansas City: 408,700, up 0.5 percent from March 2015

Government jobs

Remember that government jobs do include university jobs, so it is no surprise to see Lawrence and Manhattan have lots of them. But it is not clear what has caused the relatively large increase in the government jobs total over the last year.

• Kansas: 263,900, unchanged from March 2015

• Lawrence: 18,000, up 4.7 percent over March 2015

• Manhattan: 17,300, up 10.9 percent over March 2015

• Topeka: 27,200, unchanged from March 2015

• Wichita: 41,600, down 1 percent from March 2015

• Kansas City: 57,300, down 0.3 percent from March 2015

The state’s two largest university communities were the only metro areas to see government job growth in the last 12 months. Lawrence is glad for it too. Only two major categories in Lawrence showed job growth over the last 12 months: Government, and leisure and hospitality, which includes restaurant, hotel, bar employees and other such jobs. The leisure category grew by 100 jobs or 1.5 percent. All other categories saw job losses for the month. The largest was the professional and business services category, which includes a host of managerial and administrative jobs in the private sector. That category lost 400 jobs or 7.3 percent for the 12-month period. That was the largest percentage loss in that category for any metro area in the state.

Town Talk column