Kansas City’s jobless rate is down 1 percentage point from a year ago

The Kansas City area unemployment rate was a full percentage point lower in September compared with a year earlier, dropping from 5.4 percent to 4.4 percent, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics figures released Wednesday.

Nationally, Kansas City and 352 other urban areas had lower rates than a year ago. The rate was unchanged in just nine areas and rose in 25 areas.

The figures, which weren’t seasonally adjusted, put the national unemployment rate at 4.9 percent, down 0.8 percentage points from the 5.7 percent reading in September 2014.

All the year-over-year numbers for the Kansas City area were good. The labor force grew by nearly 4,000 to an estimated 1,104,000, while the number of jobless dropped more than 11,000 to 48,300.

Sometimes the jobless rate drops because people have quit looking for work, but that hasn’t been the case over the past 12 months.

Nationally, Bismarck, N.D., had the lowest unemployment rate in September, 2 percent, and Yuma, Ariz., was the worst, 26 percent. Yuma also had the biggest rate increase, 1.5 percentage points.

The large metro area with the biggest percentage decline was Detroit, whose unemployment rate dropped 2.5 percentage points to 5.7 percent.

This story was originally published October 28, 2015 at 2:35 PM with the headline "Kansas City’s jobless rate is down 1 percentage point from a year ago."