Honolulu’s unemployment rate fell to 5.4 percent in July from 5.7 percent in June, tying the city for the 15th-lowest jobless rate out of 372 metropolitan areas surveyed, according to a report released Wednesday.

Honolulu was one of 193 metro areas where the unemployment rate dropped in July from June. The jobless rate rose in 118 metro areas and was unchanged in 61, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.

Metro unemployment rates are not adjusted for seasonal changes, such as an influx of people into the work force at the end of the school year.

Honolulu’s July unadjusted jobless rate compared with rates of 9.5 percent for Hawaii County, 8.5 percent for Kauai County and 7.5 percent for Maui County. The statewide unadjusted rate was 6.4 percent in July. When adjusted for seasonal factors the statewide rate was 6.1 percent.

Honolulu was in a small group of states mostly in the Plains and the Northeast with unemployment rates below 6 percent in July. Bismark, N.D., had the nation’s lowest jobless rate at 3 percent in July. The job market in North Dakota has been helped by a boom in its oil drilling industry.

El Centro, Calif., topped the list with an unemployment rate of 30.8 percent in July. California accounted for 13 of the nation’s 15 highest unemployment rates in July, according to the BLS.

Nationally, the U.S. economy added 117,000 net jobs in July and the national unemployment rate fell to 9.1 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis. Still, the economy needs roughly twice that number of jobs to significantly lower the unemployment rate, economists say. Many businesses across the country pulled back on hiring this spring, after high gas prices, scant wage gains and supply disruptions caused by the Japanese crisis contributed to a slowdown in growth.