After five months of steady unemployment, Delaware’s jobless rate ticked up a tenth of a point to 4.4 percent in January.
The First State’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is still a bit lower than this time last year and lower than the U.S. rate of 4.8 percent.
Payroll data from the first three quarters of 2016 show slow, but steady job growth of about one percent. That lags behind the national rate of 1.5 percent.
Numbers for the entire year will be released in about a month.
Over the past year, the hospitality, education and healthcare sectors have led much of that growth, adding about 4,200 jobs among them.
Government across all levels shed 400 jobs, while most other sectors stayed flat.
In total, Delaware has added about 5,000 jobs outside the agriculture industry since last January.
