Employment in Northern Colorado, as in most part of the country, has been mixed, though the overall regional labor market has shown signs of definite recovery.

The good news: the region added nearly 4,000 jobs through April this year.

More than 165,100 people were employed in Larimer County as of late spring; nearly 111,500 were employed in Weld County.

Many of those jobs were in health care, education and oil and gas, some of the healthier segments of the regional economy.

Unemployment in the Fort Collins and Loveland area stood at 6.1 percent in March, an improvement over last year’s 6.2 percent and the lowest among urban areas statewide.

The Greeley area’s unemployment rate dropped from 8.7 percent in March 2011 to 8.5 percent this past March, according to the most recent report from the Governor’s Office of State Planning and Budgeting. Still, the Greeley area had the third-highest jobless rate among the state’s urban areas.

Greeley area unemployment went from 5.2 percent in 2008 as the financial crisis set in to 9.3 percent in 2009. The rate peaked at 10.2 percent the next year.

JBS remains the largest employer in Greeley, with 6,000