Pittsburgh's December jobless rate stays at 7.9 percent
posted 2/3/2010
Pittsburgh Business Times
The unemployment rate in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area remained unchanged between November and December 2009, at 7.9 percent, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry.
The seven-county region's jobless rate was 1.8 percentage points above the December 2008 level. Last month's rate was still below Pennsylvania's December unemployment rate of 8.9 percent, and was lower than the national average of 10 percent.
November marked the first decline in the region's unemployment rate since November 2007.
Within Pittsburgh's MSA, Fayette County continued to have the highest unemployment rate of the seven counties last month, at 10.2 percent; that was flat from the prior month, however. Allegheny County's rate was lowest of the counties in December, at 7.5 percent, which marked a slight increase over the November 2009 rate of 7.4 percent.
The county-by-county seasonally adjusted November unemployment rates for Pittsburgh's MSA break down as follows:
Allegheny:
§ December 2009: 7.5 percent
§ December 2008: 5.8 percent
Armstrong:
§ December 2009: 10.1 percent
§ December 2008: 7.7 percent
Beaver:
§ December 2009: 8.5 percent
§ December 2008: 6.9 percent
Butler:
§ December 2009: 7.6 percent
§ November 2008: 5.6 percent
Fayette:
§ December 2009: 10.2 percent
§ December 2008: 7.7 percent
Washington:
§ December 2009: 8.4 percent
§ December 2008: 6.4 percent
Westmoreland:
§ December 2009: 8.5 percent
§ December 2008: 6.5 percent