Indiana’s unemployment rate inched down from double digits in April while industrial neighbors and the rest of the nation continued to shed jobs.

The recession’s grip continued on the northern tier of industrial counties, even as the statewide jobless rate slipped to 9.9 percent from 10 percent the month before, aided by small job gains in the Indianapolis area, government labor statisticians said in two separate reports Friday.

New jobs are one of the first positive glimmers in a line of dour labor reports dating to early fall, but it is too soon to say the old jobs engine that powered metro Indy is sweetly running again.

“It’s nice to be optimistic, but there’s not enough information out there yet to be optimistic about,’’ said William Rieber, economics professor at Butler University in Indianapolis.

The U.S. jobless rate climbed to 8.9 percent from 8.5 percent in March. Kentucky held even at 9.8 percent. Illinois rose to 9.4 percent from 9 percent; Michigan went up to 12.9 percent from 12.6 percent; and Ohio climbed to 10.2 percent from 9.7 percent.

An employer survey that is used to set the state jobless rate is regarded as a more accurate barometer than a survey of families used for the metro jobless report.

Even so, the household survey showed 813,908 residents of metropolitan Indianapolis employed on April 18, a gain of about 5,000 in one month, leaving an unemployment rate of 8.2 percent for the 10-county region, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said.

This means April was the first month since October in which more people found work than lost jobs in the metro area.

Unlike the state’s industrial cities, the 1.7 million-residents Indianapolis area managed the transition from manufacturing to a service economy built on government, insurance, life sciences, education and entertainment.

However, the metro area’s jobless rate is still considered to be at a recession level. A year ago, 863,239 people were working in the region, or about 49,000 more than are now employed.