The unemployment rate in Delaware fell again in September while overall jobs numbers decreased.
Unemployment in Delaware dropped to 5.3% compared to 5.4% in August.
In New Castle County the rate dropped to 4.9% from 5.5%, and in Kent County it was 5.6% compared to 6.3% in August. Sussex County saw a slight increase to 4.4% from 4.3%.
Wilmington and Dover both saw decreases in the unemployment rate last month while Newark’s saw no change.
The Department of Labor’s Tom Dougherty says the state numbers are trending in the right direction.
"That's the sixth consecutive monthly decrease in the unemployment rate, so we're on a good trend here above of a falling unemployment rate," said Dougherty. "So as far as the unemployment side goes I think it's looking good. The number of unemployed Delawareans is 26,100 in September, and it's down 300 over the month and we're down about 11,400 from a year ago."
Dougherty says last month’s jobs numbers did fall, but not enough to cause concern.
"Jobs numbers are showing a 2,500 job decrease over the month, but over the year, we're up 7,600 jobs" said Dougherty. "So obviously we would like to see a little better job growth than that, but it was still growing and we're going in the right direction."
Nationally, jobs have increased at a 4% rate during that same period.
The national unemployment rate was 4.8% in September.