The comfort zone afforded by growth in health care, construction and academia wasn't enough to prevent the Pittsburgh region from recording a 5.6 percent unemployment rate in August, the highest level since March 2005.

Not only did the rate climb by 0.6 of a point in a month -- the largest spike since September 1990 -- it also was up 1.2 percent from August 2007. Still, the regional rate remained lower than that of the state and the nation, which in August rose to 5.8 and 6.1 percent, respectively.

Regional hints of the Wall Street crisis were harder to unravel. Employment in credit-related services dropped by 1,000 jobs from August 2007, but jobs in finance and insurance-related categories offset many of those losses.

State Department of Labor and Industry data released yesterday showed hard-hit sectors again include manufacturing and retail trade, the latter where across-the-board cuts at department, food and beverage, and apparel stores led to 1,100 fewer jobs compared with a year ago.

"Retail jobs depend heavily on a region's population, and continued population declines in the Pittsburgh region likely account for the drop in retail jobs," according to the Regional Indicators Consortium's Pittsburghtoday.org.

The seasonally adjusted labor force hit 1.22 million, driven largely by unemployment rising by 7,700, to 68,700, from July, the largest single-month increase in nearly 19 years.

Though the seven-county region -- Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Washington and Westmoreland counties -- managed "a steady, if faltering pace of job growth" with 3,800 more jobs than a year ago, the consortium compared that unfavorably to the 13,500 year-over-year increase recorded from August 2006 to August 2007.

Economist Harold Miller wrote on his Pittsburghtoday.org blog that benchmark regions faring better than Pittsburgh are getting fewer and farther between. In August, three more benchmark regions fell into the job loss category: Indianapolis, Kansas City and Minneapolis.

"Pittsburgh's performance relative to other regions improves with each passing month," he said.

Education and health services were again bright spots, led by record employment in ambulatory care services plus strong gains at hospitals as well as colleges and universities.

Ambulatory centers include dentist and physician offices, urgent care clinics and other outpatient operations, excluding those at retail-based, convenient-care clinics.

The local building boom helped construction jobs reach a record high at 61,900, while drops in manufacturing stabilized.

Administrative and support jobs, meanwhile, helped fuel the overall professional and business services sector to reach 160,900 jobs. Administrative and support jobs include those at call centers, collection agencies, maintenance and building security positions.

"Professional and business services reached a record high for the third consecutive month in August," said Lauren Nimal, state business analyst. "Most of the components of this industry were also at or near highs."

Struggling sectors included transportation, warehousing and utilities, down 1,100 jobs from a year ago primarily because of cutbacks in trucking and courier services.

"Although Pittsburgh's current economic mix has helped 'recession-proof' us in these challenging times, it should not be mistaken for good performance," Mr. Miller cautioned. He cited the job growth in Boston, Denver and particularly Charlotte, N.C., where jobs have increased eight times as fast as here.

"If we're going to ever match that," he said in the face of the credit crisis, "we need to keep working to create a better business climate and to grow startup firms."