Rate reaches another record

The record low has gotten even lower.

Indiana Department of Workforce Development estimates released this week showed Jay County with a 1.7% unemployment rate in November, the lowest in at least 30 years.

November's local rate dropped from October’s 2.1%, which was the previous low on record on the Indiana Department of Workforce Development website. It has statistics tracked back to 1990. (The previous low was 2.4% in September 2019.)

Even with that historic low, Jay County posted just the fourth-lowest rate in the six-county region and was barely among the lower half of the state’s 92 counties.

That reality is because unemployment has plummeted across the state.

Fifty-eight of Indiana’s counties posted unemployment rates below 2% in November. The statewide mark was 3%, the lowest since November 2000 according to Indiana Department of Workforce Development. The previous low was 3.1% in December 2019.

Jay County’s rate in November was down 0.4 percentage points from October and a full percentage point from September. (The rate was 3.3% during the same month last year.) It has been below 3% four times this year, including the last three months in a row.

The local rate was tied with Fountain, Jackson, Knox, Monroe, Morgan, Ripley and Warrick counties for 35th-lowest in the state. In the regional, Wells and Adams counties (1.4% – tied for sixth lowest) and Randolph County (1.6% – tied for 19th lowest) were both lower than Jay.

LaGrange and Union counties tied at the top of the list with unemployment rates of 1.2%.

The only counties in the state with unemployment rates of 3% or higher were Howard (4.7%), Lake (3.6%) and Miami (3%). Fayette and LaPorte counties were next at 2.8%.

Area rates are as follows:

Adams County: 1.4%, down 0.2 percentage points, t-sixth lowest

Blackford County: 2.2%, down 0.3 percentage points, t-18th highest

Delaware County: 2.4%, down 0.5 percentage point, t-10th highest

Jay County: 1.7%, down 0.4 percentage points, t-35th lowest

Randolph County: 1.6%, down 0.4 percentage points, t-19th lowest

Wells County: 1.4%, down 0.4 percentage points, t-sixth lowest