WASHINGTON — New Labor Department figures show the unemployment rate for working-age veterans who served on active duty since September 2001 edged down slightly in 2013, to 9.0 percent. But Thursday’s report also found that the rate remained well above the overall civilian unemployment figure of 6.7 percent.

The decrease followed a decline to 9.9 percent in 2012.

The statistics cover veterans who served on active duty in the U.S. armed forces since September 2001, a group referred to as Gulf War-era veterans. Still, the number was far higher than overall unemployment levels in the United States, which averaged 7.4 percent in 2013 and finished the year with a 6.7 percent overall rate for December.