HARRISBURG — 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 percent 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 percent in April, its highest rate in over four decades of record-keeping.

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

Previously, Pennsylvania’s highest unemployment rate was 12.7 percent 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 percent.

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