Jay rate is up to 3%

Unemployment numbers have continued their gradual trend in the wrong direction.

Jay County had an unemployment rate of 3.5% in March according to estimates Indiana Department of Workforce Development released Monday.

The unemployment rate locally went up by 0.2 percentage points last month as compared to February. The rate in March 2022 was 2.8%.

Before January, local unemployment had been below 3% for 18 consecutive months. It was last above that mark when it came in at 3.3% in June 2021 and had not been above 4% since July 2020. (It had spiked to 19.9% in April 2020 at the height of the coronavirus pandemic shutdowns.)

While unemployment has been going up over the last few months, it remains historically low. Jay County’s average annual unemployment ranged between 4.4% and 7.4% during the nine years prior to the Great Recession. It had been dropping each year since — from 8.8% in 2011 to 5% in 2015 to 2.7% in 2022 — with the exception of the spike in 2020.

Last month’s increase bumped Jay County in the wrong direction in the rankings among Indiana counties as it was tied for the 37th-highest unemployment rate in the state along with Dearborn, Fountain, Grant, Perry, Pulaski and Tipton counties. (The state average for March was also 3.5%.) It had been tied for 33rd-lowest out of the 92 counties last month.

The department of workforce development indicated a continued increase in the labor force, with more than 30,000 more Hoosiers seeking employment in March as compared to February.

Gibson County posted the lowest unemployment rate in the state for the third consecutive month as it came in at 2.3%. Daviess and Boone counties were next at 2.5%.

Lake County had the highest rate in the state at 5.4%. Howard County was next at 5.3%.

Seventy of Indiana’s 92 counties remained at 3.9% or lower.

Area rates are as follows:

Adams County: 2.8%, no change, tie-eighth lowest

Blackford County: 4.3%, no change, tie-ninth highest

Delaware County: 3.9%, down 0.2 percentage points, tie-23rd highest

Jay County: 3.5%, up 0.2 percentage points, tie-37th highest

Randolph County: 3.8%, up 0.21 percentage points, tie-27th highest

Wells County: 3%, up 0.1 percentage points, tie-17th lowest