The local unemployment rate hit its lowest level of 2020 so far in April at 5 percent, more than 10 percentage points what it was in the previous April, the worst month locally for the job market during the coronavirus pandemic.
The 5-percent rate is still a point-and-a-half or so above the 3.6-percent rate of April 2019.
Outside of the 15.9-percent rate of a year ago, the highest rate for an April over the past 31 years was 7.6 percent in 2012.
The Labor Department reports 27,900 people in Genesee County's labor force, which is the aggregate of everybody employed and everybody seeking work. Of those, 26,500 have jobs and 1,400 are looking for jobs.
The March 2021 unemployment rate was 6.1 percent.
The state's unemployment rate is 8.2 percent.
