The US Bureau of Labor Statistics released July metropolitan employment data today, and the good news is that the Seattle-Bellevue-Everett area showed some of the strongest year-over-year gains in the nation, adding about 31,000 non-farm jobs since July of 2010. Yay!

The bad news is that month-to-month, the region actually lost a few thousand jobs between June and July of this year... though these are not seasonally adjusted numbers, so perhaps thats not too meaningful.

Interestingly, while the Seattle-Bellevue-Everett area is home to about 43 percent of Washington's civilian workforce, it accounted for 80 percent of the new jobs added statewide over the past 12 months. So as slow as the economy may be around here, it's downright bustling compared to most of the rest of the state.