(AP) -- South Carolina added almost 16,000 jobs in March and the state's jobless rate fell slightly to 12.2 percent.
The Employment Security Commission said Friday that March's rate was down from a revised 12.4 percent in February. The national jobless rate in March was unchanged from February at 9.7 percent.
The state's overall labor force shrank by almost 1,000 jobs, but the number of people unemployed and actively seeking work dropped by more than 5,600.
Every sector except manufacturing showed job gains for the month, but the state still had about 15,000 fewer jobs in March than it did a year earlier.
Coastal Carolina University economist Don Schunk says the gains are a positive sign, but the year-to-year comparison shows how far the state has to go before it fully recovers.
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