Mecklenburg's unemployment rate fell slightly in September from August, based on data released Friday, but the number was still higher than a year ago and higher than the state average.

For September, the county's unemployment rate was 10.3 percent, according to the N.C. Employment Security Commission. That compares with 11 percent in August and 10 percent in September 2010.

Statewide, the unemployment figure last month was 10 percent.

Unemployment rates decreased in 92 of North Carolina's 100 counties in September and in all 14 of the state's metropolitan areas from a month before. For the Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill area, the jobless rate last month was 10.7 percent, down from 11.3 percent in August but unchanged from a year ago. For Mecklenburg, the total number of unemployed in September was 47,594 out of a work force of 461,562.

Two experts cautioned against reading too much into the month-to-month figures, because they are not seasonally adjusted. Also, they noted that there is a lot of flux in the numbers in September with students returning to school.

"Don't lose sight of the big picture, which is that labor market conditions across the state have gotten worse in the past year and demonstrably worse since the start of the recession" in December 2007, said John Quinterno, principal at South by North Strategies Ltd. in Chapel Hill. "The state as a whole bottomed out in February 2010. Since then, we've added only 14,400 jobs statewide. We're not really seeing any marked improvement."

In December 2007, the Charlotte area's unemployment rate was 4.9 percent, Quinterno said.

John Connaughton, a professor of economics at UNC Charlotte, said he saw improvement in the metro area numbers for Charlotte over last year, but little change in the Mecklenburg rate.

In surrounding counties, the September unemployment rate ranged from a high of 11.9 percent in Catawba County to a low of 9 percent in Union County.

In the Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill area, the government sector saw the biggest decrease from last September, losing 2,400 jobs, or 2.1 percent; the top gainer was leisure and hospitality, which added 2,100 jobs, or 2.4 percent.

Scotland County, whose county seat is Laurinburg, recorded the state's highest unemployment rate last month at 17.3 percent. Currituck County on the coast posted the lowest unemployment rate statewide in September at 5.1 percent.

Government officials calculate the unemployment rate using a survey of U.S. households, but workers who become discouraged and stop looking for jobs are not counted as unemployed.

"The bottom line," Quinterno said, "is that statewide we're not generating enough jobs to materially affect the unemployment rate."