The jobless rate in Butler County dropped less than half a percentage point in November as the labor force continued to shrink.

Data from the state Department of Labor & Industry showed the Butler County unemployment rate at 5.5%, a 0.4 percentage point dip from its 5.9% rate in October, a smaller decrease than in other counties in the seven-county Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Although not as significant a drop as between September and October, when the county's workforce shrank by 1,000 workers, or more than 1% of its then-97,000-person labor force, Butler saw a 300-person shrink in its labor force. In addition, roughly 200 workers gained employment.

The difference in labor force size is more stark when compared with November 2019, when the county's jobless rate was 4.3%. During that 12-month span, Butler County's workforce shrank by more than 5,000 workers.

Butler County's employment gain from October to November is smaller, however, than in neighboring counties. To the south, Allegheny County's jobless rate fell 0.8 percentage points to 6.5%; Beaver County, to the west, saw its jobless rate fall 0.9 points to 7.3%; and Lawrence County, northeast of Butler, had a 7.7% jobless rate in November, a 0.7 point dip.

North of Butler, Mercer and Venango counties' employment gains slightly edged out Butler's, with their jobless rates falling half a percentage point each. To the east, Clarion County's unemployment drop was smaller than Butler's, with a 0.3-point change to 5.7%. Armstrong County had a 0.7-point drop, with its November jobless rate at 7.1%.

Still, Butler County's unemployment remained the lowest in the region. Its current jobless rate lies just 1.2 percentage points higher than it was in November 2019, indicating a relatively strong economic recovery following the pandemic.

Across the seven-county Pittsburgh metro area, however, hospitality continues to lag behind other industries. Nearly half of the roughly 72,000 jobs lost in the service-providing industries since November 2019 have been in the leisure and hospitality sectors, where 35,200 fewer people are employed.