North Carolina’s unemployment rate for September is 9.6 percent.

The state’s rate decreased one-tenth of a percentage point since the last report.

The state Commerce Department released the data Friday, the last look before Election Day into the state's unemployment rate's direction.

The national unemployment rate declined 0.3 percentage points to 7.8 percent.

The state’s September unemployment rate is 1.1 percentage points lower than the same month in 2011.

Since September 2011, the state has gained 31,500 nonfarm jobs and the service providing sector increasing by 38,900 jobs.

There is even better news in South Carolina’s unemployment rate. 

It went down by a half of a percentage point in September to 9.1 percent.

That number is down from August, which was 9.6 percent.

Agency officials said the number of unemployed people in that state dropped by nearly 11,000 in the past month.