ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - Missouri’s labor numbers from November are in and the Department of Economic Development is reporting a drop in unemployment.

Missouri’s unemployment rate sits at about 6.7 percent. When asked if that’s impacted by people who have simply stopped looking for work, Department of Economic Development spokesman John Fougere said, actually, more people are looking for work than before.

“What we’re seeing now is in the last couple months the Missouri labor force is starting to grow once again,” he said. “What that means is people are returning to the labor force, people are looking for work again.”

“This past month, in November, we saw 9,200 Missourians returning to the labor force and we had 21,000 Missourians return to the labor force over the past three months.”

Some of those people had previously given up looking for work but Fougere says growing sectors like health care and financial services are offering more jobs.