The state's unemployment rate dipped in July, providing a bit of relief in a year that's seen the highest jobless rates in three decades.

The state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations reported the statewide seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dropped to 7 percent as more residents found jobs and moved off jobless rolls.

The rate compared with June's revised rate of 7.3 percent.

"It's still very high, but it's not continuing at the increases every month that we had been seeing," said Pearl Imada Iboshi, the chief economist for the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.

"It's starting to stabilize."

The numbers represent mixed news for the state, which has seen the number of unemployed jump over the past year and reach rates not seen since the late 1970s.

July was the second consecutive month the state's jobless rate had declined from a 31-year high of 7.4 percent reached in May.

Last month's rate was lower than the national rate of 9.4 percent. It compares with a 4 percent rate in Hawai'i a year earlier when the state's economy was starting to slide into a recession.

Labor Department spokesman Ryan Markham said it did not appear that Hawai'i's rate fell because people had become discouraged looking for jobs and were no longer counted among the labor force. He noted employment rose while unemployment fell.

The number of people employed rose to 600,150 from 597,900 in June.

Meanwhile, the ranks of the unemployed slipped to 45,300, or 2,100 fewer than a month earlier.

The Labor Department also reported individual island numbers on a nonseasonally adjusted basis, meaning they should only be compared to the same month a year earlier.