Michigan’s unemployment rate dropped slightly in March to 7.5 percent.
This marks the seventh month in a row the rate has declined, and it’s the lowest it’s been since April of 2008. The jobless rate of seven and a half percent is a little more than a full percentage point below where it was at this time last year.
Most of the job gains over the past 12 months have been in the manufacturing, high-tech, and hotel-and-restaurant sectors. There were job losses in government and financial services.
When people who have stopped looking for work, and people with part-time jobs who’d like to be full-time are counted, Michigan’s rate of unemployment and under-employment is 15.4 percent.
