Unemployment figures in the Oklahoma City area increased in May

Despite May increase in unemployment, U.S. Census Bureau positions helped keep Oklahoma City's jobless numbers from looking worse.

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Published: July 1, 2010
Modified: June 30, 2010 at 10:36 pm

The Oklahoma City area unemployment rate crept up to 6.5 percent in May, compared with 5.9 percent in April and 6.1 percent in May 2009, the Oklahoma Employment Securities Commission said.

While the jobless rate in the Oklahoma City area increased in May, the rise was mitigated by hundreds of temporary jobs that were filled with the U.S. Census Bureau, officials said.

Many sectors lost jobs, including manufacturing and business support services, but the number of federal jobs in the metro area rose by about 900 last month.

Many of those can be attributed to census hiring.

The Oklahoma City census office hired about 1,000 people in the spring, including droves of workers who traveled door to door last month taking census information.

"It does help the economy over this period,” said Sydnee Chattin-Reynolds, deputy regional director for the U.S. Census Bureau.

Applicants were exceptionally qualified, she said, and even included out-of-work professionals with doctoral degrees.

However, census operations are coming to a close and the Oklahoma City office now has only one-quarter of its work force left, she said.

Unemployment elsewhere

The May jobless rate was 6.2 percent in the Lawton area and 7.7 percent in the Tulsa area, both increases from the previous month.

John Carpenter, spokesman for the OESC, said Oklahoma cities continue to have lower jobless rates than most metropolitan areas in the nation.

The Washington, D.C., area had the lowest May rate, 6 percent, while the highest at 14.1 percent was in Las Vegas.

The state unemployment rate for May was 6.9 percent.