This holiday season, it appears that a lot of Mentor folks can be thankful for having jobs.

The unemployment rate for the city of Mentor decreased for the fifth consecutive month to 4.5 percent in October, according to information released by the city this week.

That is down from 5.1 percent in September and the lowest the rate has been since November of 2007. A year ago in October, unemployment was at 5.4 percent.

In Lake County, the unemployment rate decreased to 5.1 percent in October, down from 5.7 percent the month before. Ohio’s unemployment rate declined 0.3 percent to 6.3 percent last month.

Mentor continues to have the lowest unemployment rate for any community in Ohio with a population over 50,000 and has the second-lowest (only Dublin is lower) for any of the 65 cities for which unemployment numbers are calculated.

Source: October 2012 Civilian Labor Force Estimates – Ohio Department of Job & Family Service, Office of Workforce Development and Bureau of Labor Market Information.

Betsy Scott, BScott@News-Herald.com, @ReporterBetsy