Area Unemployment Drops, But District's Rises in June: Area Jobless Rate Drops to 4-Year Low
Unemployment in the metropolitan Washington area dropped to a four-year low of 4.4 percent in June, but unemployment in the District jumped to 8.4 percent, the D.C. Department of Manpower reported yesterday.</br></br>The 8.4 percent unemployment rate for the city was up sharply from the 8 percent reported in May, while the unemployment rate for the overall area was down slightly from 4.5 percent in May.</br></br>Unemployment in the metropolitan area has been falling generally since February 1977, when the rate was 5.7 percent. In the District, unemployment has been increasing since March of this year, when it was 7.6 percent.</br></br>The June unemployment figures reflect a continuing trend of new jobs being created in the suburbs with very little growth in the city. In June, for example, employment increased by 20.-100 jobs in the suburbs but by only 200 jobs in the city.</br></br>While the number of jobs increased, the number of people looking for jobs also increased sharply in June.