'You're hired' has sealed the deal for hundreds of Erie County residents in the past couple months.

The Pennsylvania Department of Labor reported a decline in Erie’s unemployment rate.

Erie's unemployment rate is above the state and national average but it is slowly moving in the right direction.

Hundreds of 9:00 to 5:00 positions have been filled.

The unemployment rate dropped three-tenths of a percent over the past couple of months.

Erika Ramalho, an administrator at CareerLink, says, "We're absolutely seeing people who are searching for jobs coming back and telling us they've been hired."

Those who still haven't found work have found comfort in the new unemployment rates.

Cindy Palewicz, who is searching for work, says, "I'm just glad that maybe within this next month or two I will get a regular full-time job."

Unemployment rates are down but there are still hundreds of jobs to be had in Erie many of them in the medical field.

"Today, we have 550 openings. The largest industry posting right now is health care. About 25 percent of those are from our health care industry jobs," Ramalho says.

Openings in the medical field have helped health care hopefuls like Palewicz.

"I would say in the last 30 days not just myself but a lot of people have been called in for interviews. I wouldn't say it means they're getting a job necessarily, but at least you have that hope that you can come in and talk to somebody for an interview," she says.

In the past year Erie has crossed six hundred names off the unemployment list.

The drop in the unemployment rate is the largest decline since February 2007.

Erie's unemployment rate of 9.7% is tied for 37th lowest in the state.