(EDITOR'S NOTE: An earlier account cited an inaccurate seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for the region in the headline and text.)
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for the St. Louis metro area dipped to 8.7 percent as three major economic sectors posted significant 12-month hiring gains, the St. Louis Federal Reserve reported Wednesday.
This was the lowest seasonally adjusted unemployment rate since 8.6 percent reached in July 2011, which set a 2 1⁄2 year low. The St. Louis Fed adjusts the regional jobless rate to account for seasonal work.
Nationally, seasonally adjusted unemployment stood at 8.6 percent in November.
The non-seasonally adjusted rate in the St. Louis area, as reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in its monthly survey of 372 metropolitan areas across the nation, is 8.2 percent.
The bureau survey found that manufacturers in metropolitan St. Louis increased their payrolls by 5.7 percent, adding 6,000 jobs from November 2010 to November 2011. National hiring in the manufacturing sector grew by just 1.7 percent over the same period of time.
Local hiring in trade, transportation and utilities (+3,800) and leisure and hospitality (+1,200) also showed year-to-year improvement.
Here, as elsewhere, the construction sector continued to falter losing 4,100 jobs since November, 2010. Government employment was also down by 1,200.
There is also a caveat to the declining unemployment rate: The size of the seasonally-adjusted St. Louis workforce has decreased by 27,000 in the ensuing three years.
Meanwhile, unemployment dropped over the past year in all but 21 of the 372 metro areas that the Bureau of Labor Statistics folds into the monthly regional jobs report issues Wednesday.
Overall, 58 metro areas still have non-seasonally adjusted jobless rates in excess of 10 percent.
California is home to six of the eight regions with unemployment over 15 percent.
El Centro, Cal. in fact continues to hold the dubious distinction of having the nation's worst unemployment - 27.2 percent.
At 2.8 percent, Bismarck, N.D. has the lowest jobless rate in the country.
The federal government will issue the December jobless numbers Friday morning.
EDITOR'S NOTE: An earlier account cited an inaccurate seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for the region.
Steve Giegerich covers the manufacturing and employment for the Post-Dispatch. He blogs on STL JobsWatch. Follow him on Twitter @stevegiegerich and the Business section @postdispatchbiz.
