Hampton Roads' jobless rate in March was unchanged at 4.1 percent, while the unemployment rate statewide edged up slightly, the Virginia Employment Commission reported Wednesday.

Despite a modest gain in jobs, the March rate for Hampton Roads was up more than a full percentage point from a year earlier, the commission said. The number of unemployed workers in the region grew to 33,920 in March, up 9,260 from one year earlier.

Part of the increase might have come from individuals moving into the region in search of work, said William Mezger, chief economist in the commission's economic information services division. Also, it has taken slightly longer for individuals who have lost their jobs to line up new ones, he sai d.

In several Hampton Roads municipalities, including Norfolk, Portsmouth, Newport News and Hampton, jobless rates in March were unchanged from the February levels but had climbed sharply from their March 2007 levels.

Despite the loss of 1,000 manufacturing jobs in Hampton Roads during the past year, the region had a net gain of 7,100 jobs, a 0.9 percent increase from March 2007, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Hampton Roads continued to add jobs in the professional-and-business, education-and-health-care, and leisure-and-hospitality sectors, according to the bureau's data. In addition, "commercial construction is picking up the slack in residential building" by adding jobs during March, Mezger said.

Statewide, the unemployment rate for March climbed to 3.9 percent from 3.8 percent in February partly because of the effects of a strike at the Volvo truck plant in Dublin, Mezger said. Virginia doesn't provide jobless benefits to strikers, but the work stoppage prompted layoffs at several auto-parts manufacturers nearby that supply the truck plant, Mezger said.

The downturn in home-building employment, especially in Northern Virginia, also contributed to the increase in joblessness statewide, he said.

Nationwide, the jobless rate for March remained at the February level of 5.2 percent. However, that was up from 4.5 percent in March 2007.

Tom Shean, (757) 446-2379, tom.shean@pilotonline.com