Braintree saw its unemployment rate decline from October to November, from 6.8 percent to 6.2 percent, a sign that hiring is on the rise in certain sectors of the economy on the South Shore and also continuing to improve overall.

The state's labor department included local unemployment levels in a report Tuesday that also showed a slight drop in the unemployment rate for Massachusetts in November – from 7.3 percent to 7 percent. The national average in November was 8.6%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Braintree is particularly well-suited for economic recovery because the South Shore has a diverse mix of businesses, including in higher-employment industries like financial services and IT, and the town itself is positioned well geographically, said Bob Nealon, an analyst working in the Braintree office of staffing services and advisory firm Robert Half International.

"All the big roots come together," Nealon said.

Companies have recently been relocating to Braintree's office parks away from more expensive properties in Boston and the surrounding area, Nealon said, which also helped the town's employment rate continue to improve.

In January of 2011, more than 1,500 people were unemployed in Braintree, a rate of 8 percent, according to the state's Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development. That number dropped to just under 1,200 unemployed workers in November, out of a workforce of nearly 18,000.

Still, Braintree's unemployment rate remains significantly higher than in years past. It hovered between 2.4 percent and 5.6 percent from 2000 to 2008. Nealon said that the numbers are moving in that direction for Braintree, but added that it is difficult to say how far down the unemployment rate will be by this time next year.

Certain sectors of the economy have improved faster than others, such as health care, education and hospitality, Nealon said. Those, along with low-unemployment industries like finance and IT, have kept the rate better in Braintree and around the South Shore than the state as a whole. Others, like manufacturing and professional services, are coming around but still lagging, Nealon said.

"People are starting to create more jobs," he said. "There’s more options out there for candidates."