Pennsylvania jobless rate slides back from pandemic peak

Pennsylvania’s unemployment began sliding down from its pandemic peak in May, even clocking in at below the national rate as payrolls grew by almost 200,000, the state said Friday.

Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate was 13.1% in May, down 3 percentage points from April's adjusted rate, the state Department of Labor and Industry said. It had initially estimated Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate at 15.1% in April, its highest rate in over four decades of record-keeping.

But that preliminary figure was adjusted upward to 16.1% in April, setting yet another four-decade record. The national rate was 13.3% in May.

Previously, Pennsylvania’s highest unemployment rate was 12.7% in 1983, according to federal data that goes back to 1976 under the same methodology. It is a dramatic change from last year, when Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate hit a nearly two-decade low of 4.1%.

Meanwhile, payrolls began rebounding, gaining back about 1 in 5 jobs lost during the pandemic as the number of new infections has slowed, Gov. Tom Wolf has eased social distancing restrictions and many businesses have reopened.

At its height, payrolls fell by more than 1 million to the lowest level in at least three decades of federal data that goes back to the start of 1990 under the same methodology.

A survey of employers showed seasonally adjusted nonfarm payrolls grew by 198,300 in May to almost 5.2 million, the department said.