Published: May 17th, 2008 02:41 AM
Last Modified: May 17th, 2008 01:32 AM
Alaska's unemployment rate held steady in April, the state Department of Labor reported.
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But a slowdown in payroll-job growth sends a clearer signal of a cooling economy, said Dan Robinson, a state labor economist.
He was referring to how many jobs employers had added to their payrolls in the past year. Whether that number is rising or falling is considered a good indicator of whether the state economy is growing or shrinking.
The number has been growing since the late 1980s. But the growth rate has been stuck below 1 percent for about a year, something that hasn't happened since 1995-96.
The Alaska unemployment rate in April was 6.7 percent of the work force. The Labor Department estimated about 25,000 workers lacked jobs but were looking during the month. A year earlier the number of jobless workers was 22,000, the department said.
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