ELKHART — Elkhart County’s unemployment rate dropped to 8.3 percent in October, according to figures released Tuesday by the Indiana Department of Workforce Development.

That’s down from 8.4 percent in September, but it’s still well above the state’s average of 7.4 percent in non-seasonally adjusted figures.

Neighboring counties LaGrange, Kosciusko and Marshall all saw similar drops between September and October, while unemployment edged up slightly in St. Joseph and Noble counties.

In seasonally adjusted figures, Indiana was at 8.0 percent unemployment in October, down from September’s 8.2 percent but still above the national seasonally adjusted figure of 7.9 percent.

The private sector added 7,700 jobs in Indiana in October, nearly double the rate of national job growth and bringing private employment in Indiana to 96 percent of what it was in 2007, before the recession, according to workforce development.

“Over the past year Indiana has experienced one of the strongest periods of job growth in over a decade,” said Scott B. Sanders, Commissioner of the Department of Workforce Development. “Since last October we have added nearly 67,000 private sector jobs and continue to significantly outpace the national rate of growth.”

Elkhart County is still in the top third of Indiana counties with high unemployment rates, but has drastically improved since leading the nation in unemployment a few years ago.