Pittsburgh area jobless rates drops to 10.2%

The seven-county Pittsburgh area unemployment rate continued to fall in August, dropping 2.3 percentage points to 10.5%. But the decrease is deceiving because almost 13,000 people dropped out of the labor force last month, the state said Tuesday.

The jobless rate for the region — Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Washington and Westmoreland counties — was slightly higher in August than the state rate of 10.3%, which fell 2.2 percentage points from July, as adjusted for seasonal hiring factors, according to a report from the state Center for Workforce Information and Analysis. A year ago, the jobless rate was 4.4%.

At the height of the covid-19 shutdowns, the Pittsburgh region’s jobless rate reached 17.0% in April.

The labor force — those residents who are working or looking for work — shrunk by 12,700 from July to 1.15 million workers in August, the state said. Employment among residents increased by 15,300 to 1.03 million in August, also as adjusted for seasonal hiring factors. Fewer residents in the labor force were unemployed in August —121,600 — compared to 149,700 in July.

The region’s economy added 6,100 jobs nonfarm jobs in August, a slow growth and a staggering 100,000 fewer jobs for the Pittsburgh area than in August 2019. Because the data for the unemployment rate is collected in mid-month, the full effect of the return of employees to schools and universities may not be felt in the statistics until September’s jobs picture.