Rate drops to historic low

Unemployment has been low in Jay County since recovering from the spring 2020 spike during coronavirus pandemic shutdowns.

Last month, it was historically low.

Jay County’s unemployment rate of 2.1% in October is the lowest in more than three decades. Indiana Department of Workforce Development released its unemployment estimates Monday.

The local rate was lower than in any month recorded on the Indiana Department of Workforce Development website, which has statistics tracked back to 1990. (The next lowest was 2.4% in September 2019.)

Jay County’s rate went down by 0.8 percentage points from September’s initially reported rate of 2.9% and was down 1.5 percentage points from the same time last year. (The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics adjusted estimates for Indiana after discovering an immediate change needed to the unemployment rate model that affected the East North Central Region, which also includes Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin.)

The county has seen unemployment on a relatively steady decline since hitting 19.8% in April 2020 at the height of the coronavirus-related shutdowns. It had dipped back below 4% by October 2020 and has stayed there even since. It has been below 3% three times this year, including each of the last two months.

Despite being historically low, the rate left Jay County about in the middle of the state’s 92 counties — tied for 41st lowest with Rush, Ripley, Pulaski, Knox, Dearborn and Brown counties — as unemployment numbers were dramatically low statewide.

The worst unemployment marks statewide came from Howard and Lake counties at just 4.2%. No other county was higher than 3.4%.

Meanwhile, 25 counties posted unemployment rates lower than 2% in October. That includes Union and LaGrange counties, which led the state at 1.5%, and Adams County (1.6%) and Wells County (1.8%), both of which ranked in the top 10.

The statewide unemployment rate was 3.3% last month, well below the national rate of 4.6%. That’s down slightly from the adjusted September rate of 3.5%

Area rates are as follows:

Adams County: 1.6%, down 0.5 percentage points, t-third lowest

Blackford County: 2.5%, down 1.1 percentage points, t-23rd highest

Delaware County: 2.9%, down 0.9 percentage point, t-ninth highest

Jay County: 2.1%, down 0.8 percentage points, t-41st lowest

Randolph County: 2%, down 1 percentage point, t-39th highest

Wells County: 1.8%, down 0.6 percentage points, t-ninth lowest