Oct. 30--The story headlined "September jobless rate holds steady" (slugged TU-JOBLESS-RATE-20091029), filed for Oct. 29 by McClatchy-Tribune Regional News, originally contained incorrect information about the potential causes for falling and rising jobless rates. The story has been corrected.

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September jobless rate holds steady

By Laurie Winslow

Tulsa World, Okla.

Oct. 29-- The Tulsa metro area's unemployment rate held steady in September at 7.0 percent, following revisions in the data from the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission.

But economists say it's too early to know if the area's rate has peaked.

Initially, the OESC had reported the Tulsa area's rate to be 7.1 percent in August, but revisions placed that figure at 7.0 percent instead.

A year ago the rate was 3.8 percent.

Tulsa County's jobless rate held steady at 6.8 percent for the month.

"I think it's a little early to say we've topped out," said Bob Ball, economic research manager for the Tulsa Metro Chamber.

The metro area's unemployment rate, which is not seasonally adjusted, could still rise a little more, Ball said. The economist said he wouldn't be surprised if that happened, but predicted the rate would not exceed 7.2 percent.

The unemployment rate can fall when people give up and quit the labor force, and it can rise when people enter the labor force because they expect to find work, Ball explained. The unemployment rate is calculated by dividing the number of unemployed people by the size of the labor force.

Overall, this is "not a bad report for Tulsa," said Lynn Gray, the OESC's chief economist.

"This is about what I would have expected for the Tulsa and Oklahoma City MSAs simply because they are such a large portion of the state," Gray said Wednesday.

Oklahoma's rate dipped to 6.7 percent last month from 6.8 percent in August.

"I was surprised when the state numbers came out, but I wasn't at this point for Tulsa because it (the local rate) will follow along pretty closely at the state level," Gray said.

The OESC analyst said initial unemployment claims are declining.

"We're seeing that across the state, so that is going to be very good news in terms of getting the unemployment rates lower," Gray said. "It's possible that we have topped out. It could go a little bit higher, but we've got a nice downward trend on initial claims.