The July jobless rate for Surry County remained essntially unchanged from the previous month, but continued a trend of being substantially hgher than the same period from a year earlier.

Figures released by the Employment Security Commission of North Carolina show July’s rate stood at 12.7 percent, which is down a tenth of a percentage point from the 12.8 rate in June.

July’s figure was about 50 percent higher than the same month in 2008, when the jobless rate stood at 8.4 percent.

In terms of actual people, the commission’s figures show that 4,422 people were receiving jobless benefits in July, down from 4,536 in June but up from 2,870 in the same month a year earlier.

The scheduled release of August jobless figures is Sept. 25.