Butler County saw a decrease in its jobless rate for the first time in four months in March, as the county's labor force remained steady.

Data released Tuesday by the state Department of Labor & Industry shows the county's unemployment rate fell 0.4 percentage points in March, to 6%, the first time it has fallen since its 0.3-point drop in November.

Also notable was its labor force, which while having fluctuated between 97,300 in September and 95,100 in January, remained at 96,200.

That means the county's jobless rate decrease was caused by more of the labor force returning to work, rather than people falling out of the labor force. Roughly 300 workers gained employment between February and March.

The last time the county saw both more people returning to work and a lower jobless rate was in September, when nearly 4,000 more residents went to work than in the preceding month.

In sum, the county has seen three consecutive months of increased employment, with an 1,100-person increase in the labor force being responsible for the slight jump in February's jobless rate despite 1,000 workers returning to payrolls.

The number of people in the labor force includes those who are employed and unemployed, but does not include retirees; students; those taking care of family members; or people who want work and have sought work in the past 12 months but haven't looked for a job in the past four weeks or were unavailable for work.

In the U.S. in March, the number of people who want a job sat at 6.9 million, with 1.9 million of those being individuals who haven't sought work in four weeks despite having looked in the past 12 months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

While Butler County's labor force remained the same between February and March, that number is still at a low compared even to a year ago, when the first signs of COVID-19 and virus-related state business shutdowns were evident in jobless numbers.

One year ago, the county's labor force was roughly 100,000 workers, which itself was a decrease from the 101,100-person force in February 2020. In fact, the county's workforce was higher in both April and May 2020 — in which the county had a 16% and 12.2% jobless rate, respectively — than it was this March.

Hiring in both September and October temporarily brought the county's workforce higher than the current 96,200 figure, and the jobless rate was below the 6% figure from October through December.

Other indicators of workers rejoining companies' payrolls in Butler County are some additional cause for optimism. Between March 13 — the week from which L&I's jobless data come — and April 17, the most recent available data, the number of county workers filing either initial or continued unemployment benefits claims has fallen from 4,283 to 3,069, a roughly 28% drop. On average, the number of workers filing for benefits fell roughly 243, or 5.6%, each week.