JACKSON - Mississippi's jobless rate improved slightly in August, moving below 7 percent for the first time since May.
But the state's jobless rate continues to be higher than the national average and higher than the average for the South.
"Unemployment in Mississippi remains stuck at a high level," said Robert Allsbrook, chief economist for AmSouth Bankcorp.
"I would not consider Mississippi's employment situation to have improved," Allsbrook said. "I think some of August's improvement is people dropping out of the labor force or exhausting their unemployment benefits."
The August unemployment rate in Mississippi, which is seasonally adjusted to take into account things like students returning to school, was 6.3 percent. A year ago, the jobless rate was 6.7 percent. Put another way, there were 83,300 jobless workers in the state in August, 3,000 fewer than the year before.
But the state's labor force continues to grow faster than the state is creating jobs.
The civilian labor force, which consists of both employed and unemployed workers, grew by 28,600 between August 2002 and August 2003.
But over that same 12 months, the number of employees on nonfarm payrolls in Mississippi fell by 9,000 workers.
Mississippi, like the rest of the nation - where unemployment remained unchanged in August at 6.1 percent - remains a victim of what economists call a "job loss" recovery.
The rest of the economy is showing strong signs of recovery, but the labor market hasn't. Companies remain reluctant to add back workers until they see sustained economic recovery, economists say.
"The good news for Mississippi is that its unemployment has been staying the same or getting a little better," said Mike Wald, a regional economist with the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics. "But given the stock market recovery, the improvement in the GDP, we should be much better this far along into the (economic recovery)."
Mississippi is still being hurt by its dependence on manufacturing.
Jack Guynn, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, said in a speech Monday in Florida that job loss is becoming concentrated in fewer sectors, primarily manufacturing now.
Mississippi lost 6 percent of its manufacturing jobs, a 12,400-job loss, between August 2002 and August 2003.
Mississippi's unemployment rate is expected to remain higher than the national average for the foreseeable future because of the high unemployment rate in its rural counties.
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