Where does our region stand in unemployment?

The April unemployment rate for Floyd and Clark counties declined to 8.1%, which is lower than the national rate of 8.9%. April data for Louisville Metro will be out in early June, but the March rate stood at 10.2%. Yesterday, the Labor Department reported that new claims for both Indiana and Kentucky declined by 3,081 and 4,323 respectively. So we will likely see continued improvement in the local labor market situation. Auto bankruptcies will disrupt the local labor market situation, however.

As we see from the graph, new claims for unemployment peaked between December and January, and continuing claims continued to rise after the new claims peak. This suggests that the unemployed are experiencing challenges in finding new work.

Continuing claims are now beginning to decline. As these continuing claims fall, we should also see a corresponding decline in the area’s unemployment rate. We can also see this from the graph. Notice that once continuing claims began to fall, the unemployment rate for Floyd and Clark began to also decline.

In April of 2008, one quarter into this Great Recession, Floyd and Clark’s unemployment rate was only 4.1%. Unemployment claims and the unemployment rate began to escalate during the last quarter of 2008. This followed the Lehman bankruptcy in September, and the collapse of credit markets and financing. Going forward, it will be some time, however, before we ever see these low rates again. Changes in consumer behavior, motivated by significant declines in net worth, will slow the nation’s recovery.

As regions emerge from the current recession, workforce development and education attainment will be the key competitive advantage for regional economies.

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This information is provided by

Uric Dufrene. 

Uric Dufrene, Ph.D. holds the Sanders Chair in Business in the School of Business at Indiana University Southeast.  He conducts research on local and regional economic trends, and teaches corporate finance at the undergraduate and graduate levels.   He previously served as dean of the School of Business.