Kansas City area jobless rate at 5.9% in January, down from 6.3% a year ago

The Kansas City metropolitan area recorded an unemployment rate of 5.9 percent in January 2015 compared with 6.3 percent in January 2014, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday.

Over the same period, area employers added a net 31,900 jobs, or a gain of 3.2 percent to 1,018,200 on establishment payrolls.

The latest numbers, which are not seasonally adjusted, were based on a household survey to capture the unemployment percentage and on an employer survey to find the employment count.

Though the year-over-year changes went in the right direction, the new report also included some less positive results for January 2015 compared with a month before. According to the data, which included regularly scheduled revisions based on Census information, both the unemployment and employment counts worsened compared with December 2014.

The report pegged the revised December jobless percentage at 4.6 percent for the Kansas City area and put the payroll employment count higher by 21,800 than in January.

Some of the increase in the jobless rate reflects a growth in the size of the labor force. More people appeared to have entered active job searches, increasing the number of unemployed persons.

This story was originally published March 20, 2015 at 11:44 AM with the headline "Kansas City area jobless rate at 5.9% in January, down from 6.3% a year ago."