Colorado’s unemployment rate skipped up to 3.1% in August, Colorado Department of Labor and Employment data showed Friday, the first time in more than a year that the state’s rate exceeded 3%.

The increase, which state economist Ryan Gedney said was not statistically significant, could be attributed to a small drop in employment and a slight increase in the labor force.

The number of unemployed Coloradans grew by 4,700 in August to 99,800, while Colorado’s labor force increased by 2,500 during the same period to 3.25 million, according to a survey of households.

Colorado still came out ahead of the national rate, which saw a slightly greater jump in unemployment, from 3.5% in July to 3.8% in August.

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Colorado’s unemployment rate, which is seasonally adjusted, hovered at 2.8% for most of the past 12 months before rising to 2.9% in July. Whether August’s slight uptick in unemployment is meaningful remains to be seen, Gedney said at a news conference.

“I think it (unemployment) will stay within this range,” Gedney said. “As we talk about around this time every year, we will start going though our annual revisions that affect our unemployment rate estimates … and so it’s possible that we could see these numbers come down.”

While the household survey indicated that unemployment rose, the establishment survey, which polls businesses, showed an increase of 5,600 nonfarm payroll jobs from July to August totaling 2.9 million jobs.

The boost came from private-sector payroll jobs that increased by 9,100, with the leisure and hospitality sector making the largest gains by adding 4,700 jobs.

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Government jobs, however, declined by 3,500 jobs in August.

“That may be an artifact of an early reference week, which may not reflect typical school staffing for that month,” Gedney said.

“As reminder, the reference week was Aug. 6-12, and it is possible that the August figure is revised up next month.”

Monthly revisions in payroll job estimates are made based on additional responses from businesses and government agencies.

Among the state’s seven metropolitan areas, Colorado Springs’ 3.8% and Denver’s 3.6% sat in the middle of the pack when it came to unemployment rates; metro area rates are not seasonally adjusted.

Pueblo’s 4.9% unemployment rate was the highest among Colorado’s metro areas; Fort Collins had the lowest at 3.2%.

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Colorado also continued a four-month streak with its labor force participation rate of 68.7%, while the U.S. saw a bump in labor force participation from 62.6% in July to 62.8% in August.