SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California’s unemployment rate dipped slightly in August to 10.6 percent, down from 10.7 percent the previous month.

The state Employment Development Department released the latest jobs numbers on Friday. They are an improvement over California’s 11.9 percent unemployment rate a year ago and show the state’s economy is continuing its slow recovery.

California added more than 12,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in August.

The biggest jobs gains were in the educational and health services sectors. Mining and logging, transportation and government were among the sectors that saw job losses.

A forecast released this week projected that employment in the state would pick up slowly in the coming year, with the unemployment rate dropping to 8.5 percent in 2014.

The national unemployment rate in August was 8.1 percent.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.