The Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry announced this morning that Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate went down three-tenths of a percentage point in the month of July.
The state unemployment rate went down to 6.6 percent during July. Pennsylvania’s civilian labor force, which is the estimated number of residents working or looking for work, decreased by 16,000 over the month, as employment rose for the fifth time in the past six months.
The total number of non-farm jobs went up by 28,800 over the month of July to 5,731,800. Jobs increased in eight of the 11 industry super sectors. The largest gain was in leisure in hospitality, which saw more than 16,200 new jobs. Leisure and hospitality also had the largest 12-month gain, adding back 85,500 jobs over the past year.
The largest decrease was in education and health services, which went down by more than 2,400 jobs. Last month, it was construction.
The national unemployment rate decreased one-tenth of a percentage point to 5.4 percent in July.
Unemployment statistics for individual counties will be released later this month.
