The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday that unemployment surged to 8.1 percent with 12.5 million Americans not able to find a job. In Indiana, the unemployment rate shot up to 9.2 percent in January.

So is anyone anywhere hiring?

Numbers published by the Bureau of Labor statistics show there still are sectors that added jobs nationally and in Indiana in the last year. And locally, those who track Indiana Career Connect help-wanted postings say the same.

"We are in difficult times now," said Linda Woloshansky, CEO at the Center of Workforce Innovations. "There is a lot of unemployment. But there still are industries hiring because they need people."

Indiana Career Connect, the state's online job search engine, is still getting a steady stream of employer orders for a broad range of health care jobs, Woloshansky said. Those include help-wanted postings for registered nurses, home health care aides, respiratory therapists and dental hygienists.

"It's not as robust as it was, but it's still there," Woloshansky said of the market for health sector jobs.

The key to landing a job in those industries is the same as it is for any other job, Woloshansky said.

First, job seekers have to determine if they have the skills and knowledge required. If they don't, they will have to find out if the employers offer on-the-job training or if they may have to complete retraining before applying.

If job seekers feel they have the appropriate background for the job, then it's all about attitude.

"Employers want people who can learn, who can change and who are adaptable," Woloshansky said.

Indiana Career Connect also continues to get employer orders for jobs in retail, for truck drivers and even a fair number of factory job openings, Woloshansky said.

Some of the hiring locally is occurring in surprising places. A number of the region's oldest, main-line industries have been adding jobs in recent months despite the national recession.

"We do have a number of employees that are aging and near retirement," said NIPSCO spokesman Nick Meyer. "We have to make sure we have the next generation of employees trained and prepared."

In January, NIPSCO advertised for 125 openings for meter reader and construction helper jobs. Within less than two weeks, the utility had almost 5,000 applications in hand and shut down the application process.

Some of those 125 positions have now been filled while other openings are still waiting on the completion of further screening of selected candidates, Meyer said.

For the past couple of years the BP Whiting refinery has been hiring to replace 70 to 100 retiring employees annually and plans to do so for several more years, according to refinery spokespeople.

Another industry that often hires in a down economy is education because demand for its services rises as people retrain for new careers, said Donald Coffin, an economics professor at Indiana University Northwest in Gary.

"Particularly at the junior college level, you will have classrooms bursting at the seams, so they hire more faculty," Coffin said.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data confirms many of the trends noted locally, Coffin said. For the past year, employment in the electric power industry and petroleum refining was up about 5 percent, bureau statistics show. Employment in health care and junior colleges was up about 2 percent.