The unemployment rate in the state was 12 percent last month.
That’s down from 13.6 percent in April.
Companies added more than 72,000 private sector jobs, while businesses started to reopen after the “safer at home” order ended. Nearly 75,000 private and public sector jobs came back.
The state’s chief economist Dennis Winters says it’s a nice surprise. He hopes that continues going forward, so they can recover as quickly as possible.
The jobless rate is still almost nine percent higher than a year ago, when it was at 3.3 percent. The state has lost 338,000 private sector jobs over the past year.
