The Kansas Department of Labor has released its employment report for the month of February and it shows the state gained about 55 hundred private-sector jobs during the month. Those seasonally adjusted numbers followed a January report that showed the state had lost 2,300 private-sector jobs over the previous year. The unemployment rate fell a tenth of a point to 4 percent. Tyler Tenbrink is senior labor economist for the labor department.
But while the private sector job numbers rose slightly, there was a decline in public-sector jobs in February, mostly at the local government level, which lowered the total job growth for the month to 4,200 jobs. The Manhattan area had the lowest unemployment in the state at 3.1 percent while the Topeka-area jobless rate was 4.2 percent. Douglas County posted a 3.4 percent jobless rate in February.
