Lubbock’s unemployment rate dropped slightly last month, bringing the rate to match the same time last year.

The unemployment rate for the Hub City has dropped one-tenth of a percent from March to 5.8 percent for April 2011, the same as it was in April 2010.

Other unemployment rates in the state include Abilene at 6.2 percent, Amarillo at 5.2 percent, and San Angelo with 5.9 percent. The highest unemployment rate in Texas is in the Brownsville-Harlingen area at 11.5 percent, closely followed by the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission area at 11.4 percent, and the lowest is in Midland at 4.4 percent.

The Texas unemployment rate dropped to 8 percent, down from 8.1 percent in March, and from 8.2 percent one year ago, remaining well below the U.S. unemployment rate of 9 percent. Statewide, 32,900 jobs were added in April, for a total gain of 254,400 jobs from a year ago.

Texas has added more than 500,000 jobs over the past five years, posting the largest gain for any state in the nation. Texas Workforce Commission Tom Pauken says that “Texas has demonstrated its ability to bounce back from the effects of the national recession through strong and consistent job growth over the past year.”

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