Local joblessness fell sharply in April, continuing a positive trend as Cincinnati’s economy recovers from the Great Recession, according to new data from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS).

“We’re continuing to see the same positive trend at both the local level and the state level,” says Michael Jones, research director at the University of Cincinnati Economics Center.

Cincinnati’s seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate dropped to 6.9 percent in April, down from a revised 7.4 percent in March and 7.4 percent in April 2012.

In the past, the unemployment rate sometimes dropped as people gave up on looking for work and left the civilian labor force, but the April report reflected genuine improvements in the local economy. The civilian labor force and amount of people with a job were higher, and the amount of people without a job dropped.

The news was similarly positive for the rest of the region. Greater Cincinnati’s seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate dropped to 6.5 percent, down from 7.2 percent in March and 7 percent in April 2012. Hamilton County’s rate hit 6.3 percent, down from 6.9 percent in March and 6.8 percent the year before.

Jones says the health care sector has been one of the leading areas of growth in the local economy, but the April report also showed strong gains in manufacturing — allaying fears raised in recent months that the industry, which Jones calls “volatile,” was beginning to recede.

“We’re starting to see that upward swing again,” Jones says. “We’re not back on track ... but we’ve erased the last couple months of losses.”

Still, the public sector has continued to decline, reflecting budget cuts made at all levels of government in the past couple years.

Jones says it’s common for the public sector to lag behind the private sector, so it’s possible there will be government job gains in a few months once government budgets are updated to match higher tax revenues resulting from the recovering economy.

In Ohio, the seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate was 6.7 percent in April, down from 7.3 percent the month before. Nationwide, the rate was 7.1 percent, down from 7.6 percent.

Job numbers are obtained through household surveys by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which uses the data to measures the amount of people employed relative to the civilian labor force. The numbers are adjusted for seasonal factors at state and national levels, but not at the local level. Since the numbers are obtained through surveys, they are often revised with stronger data in later months.

I recently watched Parks and Recreation in its entirety over the past two weeks, so if I cancelled plans with you, it’s not because my cat was sick. I was watching hours and hours of Netflix. Sorry. It goes without saying that I’m now fully obsessed with Nick Offerman (Ron Swanson), who, as it turns out, actually is married to Megan “Tammy Two” Mullally and actually is a master woodworker. Anyway, Offerman was on Jay Leno last week to promote his upcoming film, Kings of Summer. He also performed a song he wrote for his wife (NSFWish), "Rainbow Song." Apparently he’s sung this ditty on a few other talk shows, but I’ll take anything to get me through to P&R Season Six — which has been confirmed!

Saturday’s SNL finale was filled with lots of weirdness and sads. Ben Affleck did a so-so hosting job, but there were a lot of awkward moments from the start. Ben’s monologue referred back to his Argo Oscar acceptance speech (is that really as timely as your could get, SNL writers? Oh, wait. There was also a Gigli joke. Oy.) about how he loves his wife but marriage is work and blahblahblah because I guess some people thought that was kind of shitty for him to say. Well, Mrs. Affleck, Jennifer Garner, came out to faux-bicker with him but it mostly came off as a desperate “We’re married and we love each other, OK?!” confirmation. Was anyone even worried about them? Also, it really looked like he was crying when he introduced musical guest, Kanye West. Kim K's baby daddy debuted two songs from his upcoming album, Yeezus, and he was in full performance art mode (also, the censors let hella N-words slip through the cracks.)

Then came the tears. Last week it was announced that Seth Meyers will be leaving the show to host Late Night next year; Bill Hader also said this would be his last season. The two went out with a bang during a Weekend Update segment with Bill’s flamboyant city correspondent, Stefon. (Oh, and Amy Poehler co-hosted Update for old time’s sake.) Stefon took us on a wild ride that included a wedding, Anderson Cooper and all those crazy, presumably made-up characters from his club reviews (including Menorah the Explorer and human traffic cones).

There had also been additional reports that Jason Sudekis and 11-year vet Fred Armisen were heading out. Though Jason hasn’t made an official announcement, he joined Fred and Bill onstage for a reprisal of Fred’s fictional Punk pioneer, Ian Rubbish. Fred’s Portlandia co-star Carrie Brownstein, Kim Gordon, Aimee Mann and others rocked the stage with The Bizarros. :'(

Beyoncé may or may not be pregnant — Gawker considers all the possible “conspiracé theorés” here. As I go set up Google alerts for an official announcement (and ponder if/how this would affect her summer U.S. tour, specifically the Nashville concert that I will be attending), go look up the name of your Destiny’s Child with the Bey Bey Name Generator. And check out her newly leaked single, “Grown Woman” (the song from that epic Pepsi commercial).

Spinderella cut it up one time! The true star of Salt-N-Pepa, DJ Spinderella, will be in town at the Aronoff Center with Shaquille O’Neal and a slew of comedians for Shaq’s All-Star Comedy Jam June 1. Seriously, that’s a real thing.

And here's Taylor Swift being grossed out by Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez's Billboard Awards PDA: