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NEPA’s safe as long as there are no zombies

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Miscellaneous Wilkes-Barre blotter items

The number of jobs in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metro area hit a recent high in March, increasing by 1,600 from February and 7,500 over the past year.But the unemployment rate didn&#8217;t budge from February&#8217;s 6.2 percent, as the number of people looking for work also increased.Compared to March 2014, 1,500 more people were working or looking for work in the area comprised of Luzerne, Lackawanna and Wyoming counties, and 4,400 fewer were unemployed, lowering the jobless rate from 7.8 percent.Job growth was broad-based, led by more positions in professional and business services, retail trade and education and health services. The mining, logging and construction category also showed strong growth over the prior year.

Jobs up, local unemployment stable