August Unemployment Rate Dips in the St. Cloud Metro Area

Unemployment rates went down substantially in all nine area counties, according to figures released today by the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services. Only Duluth is higher than us at 4.5 percent.

The preliminary August count by the agency put California’s unemployment rate at 6.1 percent, a 0.4 percent drop from the agency’s revised July unemployment rate. Bernalillo County’s unemployment rate was 6.3 percent.

How can the jobless rate drop if the number of jobs doesn’t increase?

The explanation lies in the way the numbers are calculated.

The unemployment rate declined because the number of people looking for work declined even faster than available jobs. Additionally, Indiana’s labor force increased by 5,629 individuals last month and has experienced a growth of almost 83,000 since January 2013, which continues to be a Midwest leader. That’s the lowest figure for the month of August since at least 2000. A growing labor force with falling unemployment can signal that employers have to start raising wages to get the prospective employees they want. The largest gains came in employment by government, education and health services, and the leisure and hospitality sector.

The number of people working in Summit in August was up from a low for the month since 2000, which was 252,300 in August 2013. The jobless rates in Butler, Clermont, Hamilton and Warren counties were all more than a full point below the state’s in August, the new state data shows. Here’s another way: the local jobless rate has been below 4 percent for only 44 times during the 548 months for which the data has been kept, going back to in 1970.

Ohio still has yet to regain 42,800 jobs lost in the 2007-2009 Great Recession, said George Zeller, Cleveland-based economic analyst.

The comparable USA unemployment rate was 5.2 percent, with the seasonally adjusted rate at 5.1 percent.