By David Madden

TRENTON, NJ (CBS) – New Jersey’s unemployment rate dropped in September from 9.9 to 9.8 percent. Economists look at that number and wonder if a recent trend of increases in jobless numbers could be ending in the state.

Dr. Joseph Seneca with the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers isn’t surprised by the latest federal Labor Department report.

“Both the payroll and the household survey indicate that New Jersey’s labor market were treading water in September and the best that can be said is, hopefully, that indicates stabilization.”

Dr. Joseph Seneca suggests the next few months will tell the tale. “We fell a long way and it’s a long path to go still and that shows you the importance of the rate of job change how it’s important to get these numbers accelerating each month.” So, we’ll have a better idea by about January.

State officials have begun to question the reliability of the unemployment report, given some 30,000 private jobs have been added year-to-date, even while the jobless percentage went up.  Seneca notes that this trend is particularly prevalent in the Northeast United States although he, too, is at a loss to explain why.