Maine’s unemployment rate ticked up to 3.3 percent in September, extending one of the steadiest stretches in the state’s labor market history, according to figures released Tuesday by the Maine Department of Labor.

Job counts have hovered near 660,000 for 29 consecutive months. Over the past year, Maine added just 600 jobs on net: health care and social assistance grew by 1,400 and financial activities by 900, but those gains were largely offset by losses in government, wholesale trade and several other sectors. One softer signal came from labor force participation, which averaged 58.6 percent over the past three months, down from 59.2 percent from April to June. The department attributed the drop to a declining share of the population with jobs.

Maine continues to outperform the country. Unemployment averaged 4.2 percent nationally in September, and Maine’s rate has been below the U.S. average for more than 18 years.