Jay rate for May is 3.2 percent

Jay County slipped out of the top 10.

But its unemployment rate is still among the lowest in Indiana.

Jay County was tied for the 16th-lowest unemployment rate in the state, coming in at 3.2% according to estimates released Thursday by Indiana Department of Workforce Development.

The county had the seventh-lowest rate among Indiana’s 92 counties last month at 2.7%.

The current unemployment rate is down dramatically from the same month last year, when Jay County came in at 14.3% as the state was in the midst of its coronavirus-related limitations and shutdowns. (Unemployment in the county peaked during the pandemic at 19.8% in April 2020.) The local unemployment rate was 2.6% in May 2019 and 3% in May in both 2018 and ’17.

Jay County’s unemployment rate — it was tied with Elkhart, Harrison, Hendricks, Huntington, Marshall and Montgomery counties — was lower than the statewide average of 4.5% in May, which was up by 0.3 percentage points from the previous month.

Adams County posted the lowest unemployment rate in the state for the second consecutive month at 2.5%. It was at 2.1% in April.

LaGrange County was second-lowest in Indiana at 2.6%, followed by Boone County at 2.7%.

Lake County had the highest unemployment rate in the state for the second month in a row at 8.3%. Howard County was next at 7.7%, and LaPorte County came in at 6.2%.

Every other county in the state was at 5.5% or lower.

Area rates are as follows:

Adams County: 2.5%, up 0.4 percentage points, lowest.

Blackford County: 4.4%, up 0.3 percentage points, t-22nd highest.

Delaware County: 4.9%, up 0.4 percentage point, t-12th highest.

Jay County: 3.2%, up 0.3 percentage points, t-16th lowest

Randolph County: 3.8%, up 0.1 percentage points, t-42nd highest.

Wells County: 3.1%, up 0.3 percentage points, t-ninth lowest.