AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) Maine’s unemployment rate held steady for another month in October, state labor officials said on Friday.

The unemployment rate in the state was 4.9% for the month and has been 4.8% or 4.9% for each of the last nine months, the Maine Department of Labor said. The October rate was 1.8 percentage points higher than February 2020, the month before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

Maine’s unemployment rate was close to the nationwide rate of 4.6% and the New England rate of 5.2%. The lowest rate in the region was 2.8% in Vermont and the highest was 6.4% in Connecticut.