Colorado’s unemployment rate dropped slightly in November to 3.5%, which caps a year of mostly steady declines from 4.4% a year ago, the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment reported Friday.

That’s down from 3.6% in October and below the national unemployment rate average of 3.7% in November.

A state economist pointed to strong job growth in the education and health services sectors as the reason for the improvement.

The one-tenth of a percentage point decline from October equaled a drop of 2,700 unemployed individuals over the same period to 113,600.

There were 4,300 jobs added in November in three sectors: education and health services; financial activities and professional; and business services. The state has a job recovery rate of 122% after shedding jobs early in the pandemic, which is above the national recovery rate of 104.7%, according to a news release.

Since last November, the number of nonfarm payroll jobs has grown 103,400.

Colorado’s labor force did decrease by 4,700 in November to 3,252,100 people, falling to about 69.2% – slightly lower than the 69.4% the month before.

The rate is still higher than the national numbers, which reported a U.S. labor force participation rate of 62.1% last month.

Individuals employed in the state declined by 2,000 in November to 3,138,400 – equal to 66.8% of the state’s population over the age of 16. Nationally, the employment-to-population ratio was 59.9% in November.

Private industry sectors that saw significant growth in November were educational and health services (approximately 2,800), professional and business services (approximately 2,200) and financial activities (approximately 2,000). The largest losses were in construction (approximately 3,400) and leisure and hospitality (approximately 2,600).

With educational and health services showing the largest growth in the private sector, Ryan Gedney, principal economist for the state Department of Labor and Employment, said it was not likely a result of health systems dealing with the “tridemic” of COVID-19, flu and RSV.

“When we look over the past six, seven months, we’ve really seen decent job growth within education and health services,” Gedney said.

“I think really what we’re seeing is just continued growth from that sector and continued recovery in job loss from early in the pandemic.”

On average, employees in the state worked 33.2 hours a week. The average hourly earnings increased from $33.07 to $35.88, higher than the national average hourly earnings of $32.82.

The next unemployment report is scheduled to be published Jan. 20.