McALLEN — The national unemployment rate surpassed the rate of joblessness in the Rio Grande Valley, a further sign the area is a haven from the economic malaise.

It's a bit of an apples and oranges comparison, however. The latest local data is for May, while the latest national data - released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Labor - is for June. The national unemployment rate surged to a 26-year high of 9.5 percent in June, while the latest local data show the rate in McAllen was at 9.4 percent in May.

Local unemployment numbers for June won't be released until later this month. But it is still noteworthy that the McAllen area, which typically has a jobless rate far higher than the nation's as a whole, can claim a rate on par with or lower than the national rate.

"I'm just going to relish in it for a while," joked Keith Patridge, president and chief executive officer of the McAllen Economic Development Corp. "(Seriously) ... we want to continue to focus on everything we can to create jobs for our citizens that give them a better life and a better opportunity for the future."

Nationally in June, employers cut 467,000 jobs, sending the total number of people unemployed to 14.7 million. In the McAllen area in May, employers cut 487 jobs, putting the total number of people unemployed at 27,578.

Job losses in manufacturing and production led those local losses in May, according to data from the Texas Workforce Commission.

The national jobs report released Thursday suggests that even as the recession shows signs of easing, companies likely will want to keep a lid on costs and hold back on hiring until they feel certain the economy is on solid ground.

The uncertainty is pervasive in the McAllen area, but unlike the national picture, other economic indicators suggest the local economy has already stabilized.

Job losses in maquilas, especially at auto suppliers, sent the area's unemployment rate rising to a double-digit high in January of 10.1 percent. That same month, more than 741,000 jobs vanished nationally, the largest one-month loss since 1949. The unemployment rate in McAllen has steadily dropped since January.

Meanwhile, the local housing market has shown stability for months. Last month, the Brookings Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think thank, released a study that found that Greater McAllen is the only major metro area in the country to experience growth in employment and output during the first quarter of 2009.

"That's pretty significant," said Dick Henry, president of the Greater McAllen Association of Realtors. "People have a tendency of reading and listening to television and (grim) national news ... but we're not that way at all."

The unemployment rate, however, is just a small part of a larger economic picture. The data alone are not necessarily representative what is actually happening, said Rich Froeschle, deputy director for the labor market and carrier information department of the Texas Workforce Commission.

"We produce the numbers and we still are not sure we understand what they're doing on a regular basis," he said. "Most of the variability ... is simply an artifact of the mechanical estimating process."

McAllen, for example, registered high unemployment even during years when the city experienced rampant and steady growth.

Calculating the unemployment rate is not an exact science. Much of it is based on the Current Population Survey of households conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The group of households used for that survey rotates every four months, though they are supposed to be consistently similar in nature from one survey to the next.

In March, however, the households that entered the rotation were not different, creating an aberration that could skew the unemployment estimates, Froeschle said.

Further compounding the problems when calculating unemployment is how the recession has changed seasonality factors that influence the jobless figures. State agencies calculate unemployment as mandated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

One of the factors they account for is seasonal variations in employment levels. But the recession has changed the factors that influence seasonality, making it difficult to adjust the figures for such variations.

"It's not something you can just change on a dime," Froeschle said. "When you have really strange economic times, no one statistic is really enough to explain what is going on."

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Sean Gaffney covers business, the economy and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956) 683-4434.