On Friday, the United States Department of Labor announced that the unemployment rate had come down to 8.6 percent. The State of Alaska won’t release its November numbers for another month, but its most recent data puts unemployment at just 7.4 percent. Alaska has now held below the national average for three years.

In Unalaska, the picture is even rosier. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in the Aleutians West Census area for October was put at 6.6 percent. That’s a slight drop from September rate of 6.8 percent. The area typically has a lower rate than the state does because of the large supply of jobs from the fishing industry.

Unemployment is lowest in the North Slope Borough and the City of Juneau, where the jobless rate was 5.0 percent for the month of October. Meanwhile, jobs were hardest to come by in the Wade Hampton Census Area. The unemployment rate there was 17.8 percent.