Delaware’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate goes up while the total jobs number declines in October.
"If we look at the unemployment numbers, we did have an increase in the unemployment rate which increased to 4.2% from the previous month of 4.1%," said Tom Dougherty with the Department of Labor.
The rate was still below October 2022 when it was 4.7%. The national rate last month was also up at 3.9%.
There were 21,400 people unemployed last month compared to 23,100 in October 2022.
Area unemployment rates – which are not seasonally adjusted – were all up with the exception of Wilmington’s which remained steady in October.
The jobs numbers took a dip by 1,000 in October to 486,600, but over the last year total nonfarm jobs have seen a net gain of 10,100.
Dougherty says looking at the year to year numbers offer more insight than the monthly numbers.
"If we look at the over the year jobs it's a different picture than the over the month jobs,” said Dougherty. “So generally over the years of kind of a better picture of how the job market is doing because over the months we do have fluctuations it does go up, it does go down, but when we look at the over the year we're looking at a more like the trend of Delaware jobs."
Leisure and Hospitality are driving the jobs numbers over the last year with a gain of 3,900, while government jobs have seen an increase of 2,800.
