David Nicklaus David Nicklaus is a business columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Follow David Nicklaus Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today

St. Louis area unemployment hit a 17-year low in July, but the news about the local job market isn't all good.

The metro area's unemployment rate fell to 3.6 percent last month, as seasonally adjusted by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, down from 3.9 percent in June. The local jobless rate hasn't been this low since it was 3.5 percent in July 2000.

The new figure also puts St. Louis comfortably below the national unemployment rate, which was 4.3 percent in July.

However, the Bureau of Labor Statistics' household survey also indicates that metro St. Louis' labor force shrank by 19,013 people, or 1.3 percent, in the past year. The labor force is the number of people who are either employed or actively seeking work.

A shrinking workforce could make it hard for St. Louis to attract and retain growing companies.