By Paige Clark
TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS – The state’s unemployment rate continued to fall in April, marking nine months of decline in the Hoosier state.

The state’s rate of 5.7 percent is below the national rate and has consistently fallen there the past four months.

“April’s job numbers maintained the positive economic trend for 2014 in the Hoosier State,” said Scott Sanders, commissioner of the Indiana Department of Workforce Development. “Indiana’s unemployment rate continues to drop because more Hoosiers are going back to work as our labor force continues to grow, which is not the case with some of our neighboring states or the national trend as a whole.”

Indiana added 4,400 private sector jobs in April and the state ranks eighth in the nation in total private sector job growth rate since July 2009, the low point of employment in the state.

During that time, Indiana has grown 222,300 private sector jobs, including more than 75,200 manufacturing jobs. Indiana had led the nation in manufacturing job growth over the past year – adding the second most manufacturing jobs in the U.S. since 2009.

Indiana’s labor force participation rose to 63.2 percent in April, rising above the national rate for the first time since May 2009.

State officials also said claims for state unemployment insurance in April were nearly 10,000 below April 2013. Initial claims for unemployment insurance are at their lowest levels since 2000.

Indiana’s unemployment was 5.9 percent in March and has declined 2.1 percent over the past year – the 3^rd largest decrease in the nation.

Paige Clark is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.