Rapid City's unemployment rate continued to climb in January, reaching 5.6 percent, according to monthly information released by the state Department of Labor.

The rate, not seasonally adjusted, was the highest of the current recession, with 3,665 unemployed in a work force of 65,280.

Part of the reason for the jump, up from 5.1 percent in December 2009, may have been people losing seasonal jobs related to the holidays, said Gary Krause, assistant manager at the Rapid City Department of Labor office.

Another reason is that January is the beginning of a new quarter, and the state Department of Labor calculates unemployment benefits based on quarterly earnings.

"We sometimes see an increase in volume because now people may be eligible who in the last quarter were not, so they're filing," Krause said. "Even in what I call the good years, years ago, we would see a little spike in the beginning of the next quarter."

Unemployment in Sioux Falls also rose in January, to 5.5 percent.

The statewide unemployment rate, which is seasonally adjusted, was 4.8 percent in January, up from 4.7 percent in December.

"Over the past year, South Dakota's jobless rate has held fairly steady," state Labor Secretary Pam Roberts said in announcing the state rates. "But employment opportunities continue to be limited, and businesses are still hurting from the recession."

She said the Department of Labor is working to provide unemployed people with help to find jobs among the about 6,500 job openings listed with the state right now.

Those are not enough openings for the 23,760 people considered unemployed in South Dakota in January.

"For every job that's offered out there, you have a lot more fully qualified people competing for that job," Krause said. "They could likely get 200 applications for that one position."

Jim Scull said that has been the case at his J. Scull Construction Service.

He said he has been fortunate that his company has plenty of work and is hiring. When a position is open, he said, they see "lots of applicants, and lots of highly qualified applicants. I can only attribute that to other people in our construction field are less busy."

Among other projects, Scull is working on new stores, including the new Sam's Club at the Rushmore Crossing shopping center, new buildings at Camp Rapid, the new Piedmont Elementary School, a Head Start building at Fort Thompson and the Black Hills Surgical Hospital expansion.

Winning construction bids is very competitive today, Scull said. Work is largely limited to government projects.

"What hasn't been there is any private work," he said. "It just stopped."

Scull said he is keeping profit margins and paychecks slender in order to maintain his work force.

"Our guys want to work," he said, and people are willing to work for less to keep the jobs coming.

Krause said he expects to see more jobs open up after employers develop confidence that the economy is on the way out of the recession.

"It's anybody's guess what is going to trigger that confidence," he said.

"What has to change is private money has to loosen up, which means the banks have to start loaning more money, and people have to get more optimistic about the future," Scull said.

Scull said he is optimistic the economy is picking up and that things will look brighter at the end of the year. Architects he works with have gotten busier in 2010, and he said some restaurant projects are in the works for Rapid City. There is also an influx of projects funded by government stimulus money.

"We're doing great in Rapid City. Say what you want, we're so much better off than some parts of the country," Scull said. "Now, let's look to the future again. It's going to be OK, folks."

Contact Barbara Soderlin at 394-8417 or barbara.soderlin@rapidcityjournal.com.