OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - New figures show more Oklahomans were out of work in May than in April or during the same period in 2009.

According to the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission, Oklahoma's unemployment rate was 6.7 percent, a slight increase over the 6.6 percent rate reported in April. The agency says the rate represented 119,430 people.

The number of unemployed people increased by 4,500, or about 3.9 percent, in May over the same month in 2009. The May 2009 jobless rate was 6.5 percent.

Officials say the manufacturing sector showed the highest number of job losses, shedding 8,200 jobs for the month. The government sector added the most jobs, 4,300.

The national unemployment rate for May was 9.7 percent.

TULSA, Ok. - Almost 500 Tulsa workers who are part of an international banking firm learn they will be out of a job by the end of September. Mega-bank and credit card servicer HSBC said yesterday it's shutting down its Tulsa call center. HSBC calls itself one of the top ten financial service companies in the United States. The company says employees will be able to apply for other jobs at different sites within the company.

OKLAHOMA CITY, Ok. - Republican Congresswoman Mary Fallin kicks off her official campaign for Governor. Fallin says she'll spend the next two weeks traveling through 21 counties in a campaign she calls "Working Across Oklahoma". She says, "To talk to our employees, to talk to out employers, our small businesses, about how we can transform Oklahoma into a state of greater prosperity and opportunity for all of our citizens." She says her goals, if elected, will be to end what she calls the state's economic stagnation deal with the budget deficit and to work on lost opportunities that Oklahoma families have faced.

OKLAHOMA CITY, Ok. - The Oklahoma Public Employees Association is suing to keep 40,000 state employees' birthdates private. OPEA Director Sterling Zearley says other states consider the information private. Zearley says, "A number of other states including Hawaii, Arkansas, Kentucky, South Carolina and Delaware have language similar to ORA's invasion of personal privacy exception. These states have found that the dates of birth are not subject to disclosure." Zearley says it's a safety issue that goes beyond potential identity theft. Reporters have asked for state employees' birthdates to distinguish between two people with the same name.

OKLAHOMA CITY, Ok. - The Oklahoma Employment Security Commission says the state's jobless rate fell slightly in January to 6.7 percent, down one-tenth of a percent from December. Spokesman John Carpenter says there are still a lot of unemployed people in Oklahoma. He says, "We had 119,900 people counted as unemployed for the month of January. That's quite a large number. In fact, compared to January of 2009, that's an increase of 35.5 percent." The national jobless rate in January fell to 9.7 percent.

TULSA, Okla. (AP) - Oral Roberts University officials say they are cutting about 50 staff positions.

ORU President Mark Rutledge said in a statement Monday the cuts will bring the evangelical school closer to staffing levels at similar institutions of higher education and will help achieve a balanced budget.

The statement says employees whose positions are affected will be relieved of their duties, but they will continue to receive their salaries and benefits for 60 days. The statement says no current faculty positions will be affected.

The cuts come after 124 people were laid off in October when the school outsourced those positions in facilities management, mail and copy services. In January 2009, ORU laid off 53 employees and eliminated 40 vacant positions.

Before the latest layoffs, ORU had about 700 full-time employees.

TULSA, Ok. - Several Texas police departments are in town trying to hire the 124 recently laid off Tulsa police officers. Darin Ehrenrich has only been on the Tulsa Police Department for a year, but he's been laid off twice. Ehrenrich says, "Unfortunately, the economy is in a position where they can't afford to pay our salaries and it's just a devastating situation." Darin says he wants to work for a department that does not depend solely on sales tax to pay police like Tulsa does. Mayor Bartlett and the police union have a meeting scheduled for today to look for a way to rehire the officers.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - The attorney for the state of Oklahoma's chief medical examiner says the fired official plans to file suit to get his job back.

Attorney Scott Adams' comments were in reaction to Friday's decision by the state Board of Medicolegal Investigations to fire Dr. Collie M. Trant. The board voted 5-0 after meeting in closed session for about an hour.

The 61-year-old Trant had been on the job less than nine months. He was placed on paid leave last Monday for unspecified reasons.

Board members have not said why Trant was fired. Trant did not attend Friday's meeting.

TULSA, Ok. - Tulsa police officers voted by a wide margin for layoffs yesterday rather than take pay cuts. Ninety-percent of the police union members voted for the layoffs, including Tulsa Police Officer David Turner. He said, "It is with great sadness that we have to see 155 brothers and sisters leave." The layoffs mean the last 155 officers hired will be laid off tomorrow as part of the city budget shortfall. That's nearly twenty-percent of the Tulsa Police Department. The city's latest offer included a pay cut, more furlough days and working smaller beats. After the votes were tabulated last night, Mayor Bartlett issued a statement saying, in part, "The union has decided to put their interest ahead of those they serve. This is regrettable."

CLAREMORE, Okla. (AP) - An industrial development official says ``around 100'' jobs at Claremore-based Centrilift are scheduled to be moved to the Baker-Hughes Co. branch in Houston.

Claremore Industrial Development Authority director Tim Hight confirmed that the jobs were moving to Houston, but said he knew little more than that.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - Oklahoma's unemployment rate climbed in August, reaching 6.8 percent.

The Oklahoma Employment Security Commission says last month's rate was an increase of 0.2 percent over the previous month and 2.9 percentage points over August 2008.

Nationally, the unemployment rate rose from 9.4 percent to 9.7 percent in August.

OESC officials say the state shed 6,700 jobs over the month. The largest declines came in manufacturing and professional and business services, both of which lost 1,900 jobs each. Trade, transportation and utilities lost 1,100 jobs.

OESC figures show the government provided the month's only sizable increase with a gain of 1,700 jobs.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - An Oklahoma company will assemble and sell all-electric, street-legal low-speed vehicles manufactured by an Atlanta-based company.

The agreement between AMP Control Inc. of Piedmont and Wheego Electric Cars is to be the focus of a news conference on Tuesday at the state Capitol.

Wheego CEO Mike McQuary says the tax credits approved by the Legislature during its most recent session makes Oklahoma an attractive marketplace in which to sell electric vehicles.

He says the Wheego Whip LSV qualifies for a state tax credit of 50 percent of the purchase price of the vehicle, which is $18,995, as well as a $7,500 federal tax credit.

The assembly plant will be in Piedmont in Canadian County, just northwest of Oklahoma City.

FOND DU LAC, Wis. (AP) - The union at Mercury Marine in Wisconsin is voting on a package of wage and benefit concessions the boat-engine maker says it needs to keep 850 manufacturing jobs from moving to Oklahoma.

Union negotiator Keith Joseph says at least 200 workers had voted by midmorning Thursday. Voting by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, Local 1947, was to continue at the union hall in Fond du Lac until 6 p.m. It will resume Friday.

Union member Wayne Belongia said he voted against the deal, which would freeze wages for seven years. He says it just wasn't feasible for his family.

Last month, the union announced its membership overwhelmingly rejected the concessions. The company said the deadline for the offer expired at midnight Saturday before a second vote ended. The two sides then worked out details for another vote.

FOND DU LAC, Wis. (AP) - The union at Mercury Marine in Wisconsin says there will be another vote on a package of wage and benefit concessions the company says it needs to keep 850 jobs from moving to Oklahoma.

The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers says the vote will be Thursday and Friday.

Union spokesman Mike King says company executives and union leaders met Tuesday and prepared what he called a supplement with some clarifications regarding the package of concessions.

The union has said that on Aug. 23 it overwhelmingly rejected the deal the company called its best and last offer to keep the jobs from moving to a nonunion plant in Stillwater, Okla. A second, last-minute vote took place after the deadline expired at midnight Saturday and the results were never tabulated.

A Mercury Marine spokesman did not immediately return a telephone message.

STILLWATER, Okla. (AP) - The work force at Mercury Marine's plant in Stillwater will be expanded by a large number of employees after a union rejected a proposal that would have kept the jobs at Fond du Lac, Wisc.

The company hasn't specified how many jobs will be added at the plant. It had told Wisconsin employees that the tasks done at Fond du Lac by about 850 workers would move to Oklahoma if members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local 1947 rejected the latest contract proposal from Mercury Marine. The proposal contained concessions that company officials said were needed to keep the work at Fond du Lac.

The union rejected the contract proposal in an Aug. 23 vote.

Company officials said the transfer of the work from Wisconsin to Oklahoma would take two to three years.

FOND DU LAC, Wis. (AP) - Mercury Marine President Mark Schwabero has agreed to meet with union leaders who rejected a package of wage and benefit concessions the boat engine maker says it needs to keep jobs in Fond du Lac.

Mercury Marine spokesman Steve Fleming said Monday that the meeting is Tuesday at the request of International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, Local 1947.

Union leaders did not immediately return telephone messages Monday.

The union reported Sunday that its members overwhelmingly voted to reject what Mercury Marine called its final offer to rework a labor contract signed a year ago.

The company said Sunday it would move many of its Fond du Lac manufacturing operations to a nonunion plant in Stillwater, Okla., over the next two to three years.

FOND DU LAC, Wis. (AP) - Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle says he's disappointed that union workers at Mercury Marine have rejected a package of wage and benefit concessions.

The boat engine maker says that as a result of Sunday's vote, it will move many of its Fond du Lac manufacturing operations to its facility in Oklahoma over the next two to three years.

Doyle is calling on Mercury Marine and the union to keep working to resolve their differences. He says the opportunity to keep hundreds of jobs in Wisconsin still exists. And as long as it does, Doyle says, he'll keep fighting for it. But the governor says he can't do it alone.

Fond du Lac County Executive Allen Buechel says the county must figure out how to at least keep the company's headquarters in Fond du Lac.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - Oklahoma has set a new record for unemployment claims as the effect of the global recession continues to be felt in the state.

John Carpenter of the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission said Tuesday the state paid out $20.8 million last week on 64,190 claims. Carpenter says that's an all-time record and that the commission has been setting new unemployment claims records since the beginning of the year.

In addition, Carpenter says that at the end of June, the state had paid out about $274 million to jobless Oklahomans. Oklahoma paid out just under $183 million all of last year.

In spite of the growth in unemployment payments, the state's Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund remains healthy. Carpenter says the fund contained $715.5 million at the end of June.

TULSA, Okla. (AP) - A Louisiana-based company is announcing plans to close a Tulsa pipe manufacturing plant.

The Shaw Group of Baton Rouge said yesterday it will shut down Shaw Tulsa Fabricators in early August.

A company spokesman says the company is trying to become more efficient.

The plant opened in 2006 and has 168 employees. It manufactures pipe for the construction industry.

CATOOSA, Okla. (AP) - Industrial service provider Harsco Corp. plans to cut 185 jobs at the Port of Catoosa because of the economy.

The Harrisburg, Pa.-based company says the layoffs announced yesterday would come at the Air-X-Changers division, which makes heating devices for natural gas companies.

Harsco says more than 40 percent of the laid-off employees have been with the company for less than six months.

Last month, Harsco announced steep drops in its first quarter profits and revenue and CEO Salvatore Fazzolari predicted it would be an ``extremely challenging'' year.

TULSA, Okla. (AP) - Sixty-three employees at the John Zink Co. facility in Tulsa will be laid off during the next 60 days.

The company said yesterday it was reducing its U.S. work force of about 850 employees by eight percent.

The John Zink Co. is part of the Koch Chemical Technology Group. Koch Industries spokeswoman Theresa Johnson says the affected employees were notified of the layoffs on Thursday.

The company's Web site says it provides products and technologies that enhance air and water quality.

TULSA, Okla. (AP) - A Tulsa-based aerospace manufacturing and repair company has laid off 60 more employees, raising its four-month layoff total to 271.

Nordam Group Inc. chief executive officer Bill Peacher says a continuing slump in business jet manufacturing led to the most recent layoffs in the company's Nacelle and Thrust Reverser division.

Peacher says business jet manufacturers including Cessna, Lear, Raytheon, Gulfstream and Dassault all have reduced orders for aircraft components and that those companies also are cutting jobs during the economic downturn.

Nordam employs about 1,750 people in Tulsa and about 2,200 people worldwide. Peacher says Nordam has no plans for further layoffs but that he couldn't be sure of the company's future.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - Oklahoma's unemployment rate inched up by 0.3 percent from November to 4.8 percent in December, but remained more than 2 percent lower than the national jobless rate.

The Oklahoma Employment Security Commission reported yesterday that the statewide rate was 0.5 percent higher than the rate reported for December of last year.

Meanwhile, the U.S. jobless rate has risen to a 16-year high of 7.2 percent in December. The states with the biggest increases were Indiana at 8.2 percent, up from 7.1 percent in November, and South Carolina with 9.4 percent, an increase from 8.4 percent.