St. Cloud Metro Area Unemployment Drops in September

ST. CLOUD - The unemployment rate in the St. Cloud metro area dropped last month.

The Department of Employment and Economic Development says our unemployment rate is now at 5.1%, down from the 5.5% we had in August.

This is the lowest rate we've had for the month of September since before the recession, when it was 4.3% in September 2007.

We're doing better than the state as a whole, which has an unemployment rate of 5.8%.  The U.S. rate is 7.8%.

Unemployment rates for Minnesota's metro areas:
Rochester - 4.4%
Mankato - 4.6%
St. Cloud - 5.1%
Twin Cities - 5.3%
Duluth - 6.1%