Citizen Staff Writer

TERESA TRUELSEN

ttrueslsen@tucsoncitizen.com

The Tucson metro area lost another 6,100 jobs in July over the previous month, raising the area’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate to 4.9 percent from 4.7 percent in June.

Arizona’s seasonally adjusted nonfarm unemployment rate for July also rose, three-tenths of a percent to 5.1 percent.

The rise follows national trends as the economy continued to slow. Nationally, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate increased to 5.7 percent in July from 5.5 percent in June.

The job losses were seasonally anticipated, according to the Arizona Department of Commerce report, with unemployment numbers typically higher in July when schools are out of session.

In the Tucson area, which includes all of Pima County, jobs were lost in all sectors except Natural Resources and Mining and Information, which remained steady.

The majority of jobs lost came in the Service-Providing industry, which dropped 5,200 jobs, the bulk of those in the trade, transportation and utilities category, which lost 900 jobs over the previous month.

Construction jobs continue to drop, with a loss of 500 from June to July. That brings the year over year loss to 3,300 since July of last year.

Statewide, nonfarm jobs in Arizona lost 37,500 jobs in July.

The goods-producing industries posted a loss – 3,000 jobs – for the 11th consecutive month, as did the construction industry, also losing 3,000 jobs.

Arizona has lost 128,000 nonfarm jobs since employment levels peaked in December 2006.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 15th, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Business Edge. Tags for this post: Arizona, Economy, page-9A, Teresa Truelsen, Tucson. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.