While Delaware’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dropped in April, jobs numbers were also down.
The unemployment rate last month was 4.3% - down from 4.4% in March and the same as April 2022, but higher than the national rate of 3.4%.
Last month there were 21,500 unemployed Delawareans - also unchanged from a year ago.
The other good news is that all area unemployment rates – which are not seasonally adjusted – were lower last month than in March.
As for jobs numbers, seasonally adjusted nonfarm employment was 482,400 - down 400 jobs from March, and Tom Dougherty with the Labor Department says two industries are the main culprits.
"Construction is down 500 over the month. Transportation and utilities is down 400 over the month,” said Dougherty. “So we've had a couple areas where employment is driving the over the month decline in employment."
Government jobs – especially state jobs – improved, gaining 500 jobs, 300 of them on the state side.
Dougherty says despite the negative jobs numbers from last month, the news is generally positive over the past year.
"Employment numbers are up about 2% over the year which is just a little bit below what we have nationally which is 2.6 nationally, but those numbers they've been bouncing around a little bit recently. But overall I would say that that's a pretty good increase in employment," said Dougherty.
Overall, Delaware’s nonfarm jobs have seen a net gain of 9,200 since April 2022.
