RI Unemployment Inches Down

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Friday, March 04, 2011

Greg Berman, GoLocalProv News Contributor

Rhode Island’ s unemployment rate for January fell to 11.3 percent, a slight drop from its December rate of 11.5 percent, according to new numbers released today by the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training.

This trend was mirrored on the national level, with the country’ s unemployment rate decreasing by .4 percent over the month, ultimately settling at 9.0%.

In Rhode Island, the number of unemployed residents decreased by 1,100 over December figures, falling to a total of 65,100 in January. Despite increasing employment, however, the state suffered a loss of 1,300 jobs over the past month.

These new figures are accompanied by revised yearly statistics, which reveal that Rhode Island’ s economy actually performed better in 2010 than initially thought. Originally, the department reported the highest unemployment rate for 2010 was 12.7 percent, when in fact it was only 11.8 percent. Furthermore, the report found that Rhode Island based jobs increased by an average of 7,700 each month over original estimates.