In recent months Pennsylvania has been in step with the nation in terms of unemployment, staying about a point behind the national rate as both rates slowly ticked up.

Yesterday the state announced some good news: Despite the national increase in unemployment to 10.2 percent in October, Pennsylvania's rate stayed unchanged from September at 8.8 percent.

The state also gained jobs, as the seasonally adjusted nonfarm job count rose for the month by 10,600. It was only the second time since June 2007 that the state saw an increase in the number of jobs.

Increased employment in education and health services (11,500 jobs), leisure and hospitality (2,400 jobs) and government (1,700 jobs) offset losses in manufacturing (3,800 jobs) and construction (1,400 jobs). Other sectors gained or lost fewer than 1,000 jobs.

The state is still down 185,000 jobs since October of last year, including 70,800 in manufacturing, 26,800 in construction and 41,500 in professional and business services.

There also has been an increase in the unemployment rate of 3 percentage points from October 2008 to October 2009, which is a nearly 50 percent increase in the unemployment rate even as the labor force has fallen by 95,000 people or 1.5 percent over the year.

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