WASHINGTON – The Providence-Fall River-Warwick metropolitan area’s unemployment rate fell in November compared with the month before, although the year-over-year increase again was the sharpest in any major metropolitan area, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. Meanwhile, the New Bedford-area jobless rate rose over both periods.

The jobless rate in Greater Providence was 8.3 percent. That represented a 0.1-percentage-point decline from October’s 8.4 percent (READ MORE) but a 3.6-percentage-point increase from the November 2007 level of 4.7 percent.

For the second month in a row, the Providence area had the steepest year-over-year rise among the nation’s 49 urban areas with a Census 2000 population of 1 million or more. Twenty of those major metropolitan areas saw year-over-year increases of at least 2.0 percentage points and another 27 had increases of at least 1.0 percent.

Among all 369 designated metro areas, however, the sharpest year-over-year changes were the 7.9-percentage-point surge in Elkhart-Goshen, Ind., and the 6.5-percentage-point increase in Danville, Va. Compared with November 2007, the jobless rate rose in 364 metro areas, was unchanged in one and fell in four, but no area saw its unemployment rate fall more than 0.3 percentage points, the BLS said.

The Providence region’s civilian labor force (based on place of residence) of 703,200 local workers represented an increase from October’s 701,900 but a decline from the metro region’s year-ago total of 714,700 workers. Non-farm payroll employment (based on place of work) shrank to 568,800 positions from October’s 572,700 local jobs and fell 3.2 percent compared with the year-ago 587,300.

In the New Bedford metropolitan area, the unemployment rate rose to 7.9 percent from October’s 7.3 percent and November 2007’s 5.5 percent.

The area’s civilian labor force was 83,800 workers, up slightly from October’s 83,700 but down slightly from the year-ago work force of 83,900. Employment on non-farm payrolls was unchanged from October’s revised 66,300 jobs but fell 1.6 percent compared with the November 2007 total of 67,400 New Bedford-area jobs.

The U.S. unemployment rate before seasonal adjustment rose to 6.5 percent in November from 6.1 percent in October and 4.5 percent in November 2007.

Jobless rates in metropolitan areas nationwide ranged from 2.4 percent in Logan, Utah-Idaho, to 23.4 percent in El Centro, Calif., the BLS said. Twenty-three of the nation’s 369 metro areas had jobless rates of at least 10 percent, while eight had rates of less than 3.0 percent.

Rhode Island’s unadjusted November jobless rate of 8.5 percent represented a decline from October’s 8.8 percent but an increase from the year-ago 4.7 percent, the BLS report said, while Massachusetts’ unadjusted rate of 5.5 percent represented an increase from both October’s 5.0 percent and November 2007’s 3.8 percent.

After seasonal adjustment, however, the Ocean State saw its unemployment rate pause at 9.3 percent – unchanged from October’s 25-year high but up sharply from the year-ago 5.2 percent – while the Bay State jobless rate rose to a five-year high of 5.9 percent from the preceding month’s 5.5 percent. (READ MORE)

Additional information, including the latest monthly Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment report, is available from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics at www.bls.gov.