The county’s unemployment rate returned to more than 10% in March, but the pace of yearly layoffs slowed with a gain in jobs from February to March.
Unemployment here was 10.1% last month, up from a revised 9.8% for February, according to the state’s Employment Development Department.
That’s the second highest unemployment rate in the current downturn after January’s peak level of 10.2%.
A year earlier, unemployment here was 8.3%.
The jobless rate rose with a 5,900 increase in those counted as unemployed by state.
Among those could be students, retirees and those who have given up looking for work, an Employment Development Department spokesman said.
Despite the rise in unemployment, March’s numbers were among the best the county has seen in months.
For the 12 months through March, employers here shed 39,700 workers, a 2.9% decline.
But that wasn’t as steep as February, when employers here laid off 53,000 workers, a 3.8% decline.
It also continued an improvement since January, when employers in the county laid off 72,100 workers from a year earlier, a 5% decline.
January was the highest level of yearly layoffs since the peak of the recession in spring 2009.
The county saw a gain in jobs from February to March.
Nonfarm employment here rose by 7,300 jobs to 1.36 million workers from February to March, a gain of less than 1%.
Professional and business services saw the biggest monthly gain, adding 2,200 jobs.
Administrative and support services, which includes temporary help, accounted for 77% of those jobs.
Manufacturing, one of the harder hit sectors during the downturn, added 1,800 jobs from February to March.
Construction, the hardest hit employment sector, saw a loss of 300 jobs from February to March.
The loss was partly due to recent rain, which put off work at construction sites.
On a yearly basis, construction led job losses in March with a loss of 14,300 jobs, followed by trade, transportation and utilities with 7,900 jobs lost.
