South Dakota, with a November unemployment rate of 3.4 percent, has been in a recession since December 2007, according to Ralph Brown, University of South Dakota economics professor emeritus.

The economic decline should at least slow during the second half of 2009 if not recover, Brown said. The most recent long recessions - in 1973-75 and 1981-82 - both lasted 16 months.

"We are going to pass those," Brown said. "I'm generally an optimist, but I still think we've got another minimum of six months of slow activity."

The state Labor Department reports 15,055 South Dakotans were out of work in November out of a labor force of 446,045. October's statewide unemployment rate was 3.2 percent.

November jobless rates for South Dakota cities included 2.2 percent in Brookings, 2.4 percent in Vermillion and Aberdeen, 2.5 percent in Huron and Pierre, 2.9 percent in Mitchell, 3 percent in Sioux Falls, 3.1 percent in Watertown, 3.3 percent in Yankton, and 3.6 percent in Rapid City and Spearfish.

Sioux Falls' November rate was the highest since March 2007. A series of job cuts were announced in Sioux Falls last fall, including LodgeNet and Raven Industries.

"Sioux Falls has one of the lowest unemployment rates in a metropolitan area in this country. We lost 2 million jobs nationally since December of 2007, and Sioux Falls has not gone negative at all in terms of those numbers," Brown said.

He said he's surprised that manufacturing and construction have not lost jobs in Sioux Falls at nearly the rates affecting other parts of the country.

"I'm not sure how to explain what is happening in Sioux Falls," he said, adding, "I don't think what we have now is going to hold."

Mayor Dave Munson said he's optimistic. "Unemployment should stay pretty flat for us."

The nation's jobless rate hit 6.7 percent in November.

On the Net: http://dol.sd.gov/lmic/menu_labor_force.aspx