Job seekers fill out applications at a career fair in May of this year. Recent figures suggest that new job hunters in Maryland and the District are having an easier time finding work. (Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg News)

Unemployment rates in Virginia, Maryland and the District fell in May even as a weak national jobs report rattled financial markets. The D.C. metropolitan area as a whole added a healthy 61,900 jobs in the past year, a 1.9 percent employment growth rate that narrowly outstripped the rest of the country, according to government data released Friday.

“It’s clear we’re getting into a more mature stage of the business cycle,” said Stephen Fuller, an economist at George Mason University.

Unemployment rates in Virginia and Maryland dropped to 3.8 percent and 4.5 percent respectively. The rate fell faster in the District than in its suburban periphery, dropping by 0.9 percent in the past year to bottom out at 6.1 percent.

The numbers are a far cry from the early days of the recession, when jobless rates hovered closer to 10 percent.

“The region is clearly approaching full employment. We can’t go much lower than this,” said Anirban Basu, chief executive at Sage Policy Group, an economic consulting firm.

But at least in Virginia, the remarkably low unemployment rate might have less to do with job creation than with baby boomers retiring and younger job seekers giving up. Virginia had close to 11,000 fewer job seekers in May than it did a year ago, mirroring a national decline that has confounded economists and politicians throughout the recovery.

“It’s still kind of a puzzle what’s going on with labor force participation. It’s definitely on a historic low side,” said Ann Macheras, an economist at the Richmond Federal Reserve.

The picture is different in the District and Maryland. D.C. added about 10,000 jobs seekers in the past year even as the unemployment rate fell by 0.9 percent, suggesting newcomers are having an easier time finding jobs. Maryland’s labor force also grew compared with last year.

Employment grew in almost every local industry except the “information” category, a catch-all classification that includes jobs in broadcasting and telecommunications. That category has been on the decline for years, but May’s jobs report showed a particularly stark drop locally in which the sector lost 6,200 jobs in the one-year period ending in May.

Economists said this can probably be attributed to the ongoing strike at Verizon that kept some 40,000 people nationally away from work in April and May.

“The Verizon strike probably explains a very meaningful chunk,” Basu said. “That’s not a broader economic phenomenon. That’s Verizon.”