Is Pittsburgh one of the 1st cities to see the leveling off of the Recession (Philadelphia: unemployment rate)

[Blackbeauty212]

Pittsburgh unemployment rate falls to 6.9 percent


Unemployment in the Pittsburgh area inched down in April to 6.9 percent, but was still up from 4.2 percent unemployment in April 2008, according to the latest numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The unemployment rate is still lower than April’s national unemployment rate of 8.6 percent, not seasonally adjusted, which was up from 4.8 percent a year earlier.
Statewide, the unemployment rate was 7.6 percent in April, down from 8.3 percent in March, but up from 4.5 percent in the year-ago period.
The Pittsburgh area's April figure was down from March's rate of 7.5 percent. In the region, there were about 83,000 people unemployed, down from about 91,300 in March.
Across Pennsylvania, there were about 480,900 people looking for work in April, down from 527,700 in March.
Philadelphia's unemployment rate was 7.6 percent in April, down from 8 percent in March. Like Pittsburgh, however, the rate was much higher than last April's rate of 4.4 percent.
The Williamsport area had the highest unemployment rate in Pennsylvania for the month of April, according to the census figures, at 8.5 percent. The figure is lower than that area's March rate of 9.3 percent, but close to double the April 2008 rate of 5.0 percent.
All 372 metropolitan areas posted higher unemployment rates than a year earlier, and 93 areas had rates of at least 10 percent. The Pittsburgh area was one of 117 areas that posted rates below 7 percent, down from 347 areas in April 2008.
In April, the jobless rate was at least 15 percent in 13 metro areas, nine of which were in California, and 31 areas had rates below 5 percent.

http://pittsburgh.bizjournals.com/pi...1/daily51.html

[BrianTH]

As I recall, in the last recession Pittsburgh lagged behind the U.S. average in losing jobs, but then lagged behind the U.S. again in regaining jobs. So it would be nice if we were better on both ends this time.

Anyway, it looks like most states and cities experienced a drop (although this is not seasonally adjusted and subject to revision). Here is the full list if you want it:

Table 1. Civilian labor force and unemployment by state and metropolitan area

Nonetheless, it also looks to me like Pittsburgh's drop (from 7.5 to 6.9) was better than average.

[AaronPGH]

Nice!