Midstate unemployment rate drops in March

(Harrisburg) — Slow growth may be improving the jobless picture in the midstate and across the commonwealth.

Pennsylvania’s March unemployment rate is down two-tenths of a percentage point to 7.9 percent.

Warmer spring temperatures are being attributed to a rise in employment across the region.

Analysts at the state Department of Labor and Industry say construction jobs are up in the so-called Harrisburg-Carlisle Metropolitan Statistical Area.

The MSA that includes Dauphin, Cumberland and Perry counties saw its unemployment fall three-tenths of a point to 7.1 percent.

The Gettysburg area has the midstate’s lowest unemployment rate at 6 percent.

It joins the Sunbury area in Northumberland County, Juniata County, and the Pottsville area in Schuylkill County with jobless rates that fell half a percentage point from month-to-month.

Pottsville’s rate is the region’s highest at 8.8 percent.

The Lebanon and Lancaster areas check in at 6.5 percent, each.

The York-Hanover area has an unemployment rate of 7.6 percent.

The rate’s down two tenths of a point in Chambersburg, to 6.2 percent.