Indiana’s unemployment rate for September 2021, which stood at 4.0% when released on Oct. 22, has since been revised downward to 3.5% by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Indiana’s labor force participation rate for September also has been revised downward by BLS, from 63.0% to 62.9%.
BLS made the revision after discovering an immediate change needed to the unemployment rate model that affected the East North Central Region, which includes Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin.
BLS said unemployment statistical models used to calculate labor force data have been greatly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Effective October 2021, BLS changed its approach to detecting and adjusting for outliers in monthly statewide data. The distortions made to January-August 2021 statewide labor force estimates will be modified during the annual benchmarking process in February 2022.
Indiana’s unemployment rate stands at 3.3 percent for October, and the national rate is 4.6 percent. The monthly unemployment rate is a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) indicator that reflects the number of unemployed people seeking employment within the prior four weeks as a percentage of the labor force.
Marshall County’s unemployment rate for October was 2.0% ranking us 60th of the 92 counties. Last month in September our rate was 2.6% and in August 3.1%.
Looking at the counties surrounding Marshall are LaPorte County who is 3rd on the list of counties with a rate of 3.4%. In September their rate was 4.6%. Starke County moved to 12th on the list with an unemployment rate of 2.9% a full percentage drop from the September rate of 3.9%. St. Joseph County has an October rate of 2.7% ranking them 15th. Last month their unemployment rate was 3.8%. Fulton County dropped to 31st on the list in October with a rate of 2.4%. In September they were 24th with a rate of 3.5%. Pulaski County is 50th with a rate of 2.4%.
Kosciusko moved from 65th on the list of counties in September with a rate of 2.7% to 72nd was a rate of 1.9%. Elkhart County is near the bottom of the list of counties with an unemployment rate of 1.8% for October. In September they had a rate of 2.4% ranking them 80th.
Indiana’s labor force had a net decrease of 9,183 over the previous month. This was a result of a decrease of 7,030 unemployed residents and a decrease of 2,153 employed residents.
Indiana’s total labor force, which includes both Hoosiers employed and those seeking employment, stands at 3.33 million, and the state’s 62.7 percent labor force participation rate remains above the national rate of 61.6 percent.
Learn more about how unemployment rates are calculated here: http://www.hoosierdata.in.gov/infographics/employment-status.asp.
