Pittsburgh continued to hold its own in the gloomy workplace as the unemployment rate here inched up to 5.5 percent in October, well below the state and national rates of 5.8 and 6.5 percent, respectively.

The monthly, one-tenth-of-a percentage-point bump kept the seven-county Pittsburgh region (Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Washington and Westmoreland) in the middle of the pack statewide, with the sixth-lowest rate among 14 Metropolitan Statistical Areas.

"The Pittsburgh employment situation looks like it's in good shape, especially when you look at what's going on in the broader U.S. economy," said PNC regional economist Robert Dye.

Five regions had rates above 6 percent, with Scranton-Wilkes Barre registering the highest, at 6.8 percent.

Three regions had rates below 5 percent, with State College having the lowest at 4.5 percent.

As in State College, educational services remained strong in Pittsburgh with other bright spots being administrative and support jobs year-to-year, as well as construction, which recorded gains on a monthly and annual basis.

Harold Miller, a regional economist and market consultant, said the 7,600 new nonfarm jobs year-to-year kept Pittsburgh in better shape than most of the benchmark regions tracked by the Regional Indicators Consortium, from Detroit and San Francisco to Phoenix and Orlando.

The annual consortium update on how Pittsburgh compared with 14 benchmark regions is at www.pittsburghquarterly.com/.

"While the rate of job loss in the U.S. worsened again in October for the fourth straight month, the Pittsburgh Region continued to go in the exact opposite direction," Mr. Miller wrote in his blog, Pittsburgh's Future at www.pittsburghfuture. blogspot.com/.

"Relative to other regions, Pittsburgh is doing very well -- it ranked ninth in job growth among the top 40 regions from October 2007 to October 2008."

Goods producers that include new construction added 1,000 jobs since last October, the first year-to-year gain in six months.

The data left plenty of room for caution, as economists mentioned the high flux in education-related job data, with numbers that can vary as semester calendars change from one year to the next.

The 5,000 net change in total nonfarm jobs in October, Mr. Dye said, could well have been dampened by the 6,000 paper gains recorded in private and public education.

Perhaps more significantly, he and others thought it vital to look beyond the building-boom maze of girders, cranes and hard hats toward the wish list of things that won't get done.

"The funding for the projects that we can see were approved and are in solid shape," Mr. Dye said. "It's the funding for the projects that are on the drawing board that are in jeopardy."

"We're getting the 1-2 punch here of tight credit and a generally weaker economy," he added.

Labor analyst Mark Price at the Keystone Research Center in Harrisburg expected to see the jobless rate here rise through 2009.

Mr. Price based his projection on what happened in the months following the 2001 recession when unemployment in the Pittsburgh region didn't peak at 6 percent until the summer of 2003.

The two important unknowns are whether this recession will be worse than the last two and whether a fiscal stimulus package is forthcoming in Washington, D.C.

All signs point to a boost aimed at infrastructure, which he saw as a plus.

"You always worry about a bridge to nowhere, but we haven't invested a lot in maintenance and repairs so in that respect there's an opportunity," Mr. Price said, "so long as you're identifying good projects."