In this recession, being behind the times has been a good thing as the unemployment rate in the Pittsburgh area continued to be much lower than that in the rest of the nation.

But in January, the region started to see the downside of that equation. While the national jobless rate has started to tick down -- marking the third month that the rate either declined or held steady -- local unemployment continued to rise, reaching 8.1 percent of the labor force in the Pittsburgh region. The regional unemployment rate rose even as the rest of the state's jobless levels remained unchanged at 8.8 percent.

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Jobless rate

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The increase in local unemployment during the first month of 2010 represented a two-tenths of a percentage point rise from December's 7.9 percent. The local region lost 27,800 jobs in January.

The state Department of Labor and Industry's report on regional unemployment, scheduled for release today, said the Pittsburgh metropolitan statistical area's annual unemployment rate of 8.1 percent for 2009 was the highest it has been since 1986.

Fayette County, which in December had the highest unemployment rate in the seven-county metropolitan statistical area at 10 percent, saw the largest percentage increase in January with unemployment rising to 10.4 percent.

Armstrong County's unemployment rate remained steady at 9.9 percent for the month.

There was good news for Beaver County. After experiencing 8.5 percent unemployment in December, that county's jobless rate fell to 8.3 percent in January.

Washington and Westmoreland counties both saw slight increases in unemployment, reaching 8.5 percent, from 8.3 percent and 8.4 percent, respectively. Unemployment rose in Butler County from 7.5 percent to 7.8 percent, and in Allegheny County from 7.5 percent to 7.6 percent.

Statistics for the region showed the biggest losses in retail, which lost 5,200 jobs, including 1,300 in clothing stores and 1,200 in department stores.

Education and health services, which has been steadily gaining jobs, cut 3,200 positions in January, though the sector still has 2,000 more jobs than it did in January 2009. Local colleges and universities cut 1,800 jobs in January, though there were still 1,100 more jobs than in the same month of 2009.

Hospitals cut 200 jobs in the region in January, continuing a trend in which hospital employment is now down a total of 1,000 jobs since a year earlier.

Construction lost 4,800 jobs during the month and was down a total of 4,000 jobs from the same time last year, while the manufacturing sector, which dropped 1,500 jobs for the month, was down 9,500 jobs from January 2009.

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