Bartholomew County’s unemployment rate jumped to 18.4% last month and was higher than the state and national averages of 16.9% and 14.7%, according to state figures released earlier this week.
By comparison, Bartholomew County’s unemployment rate in April 2019 was 2%.
Though initial unemployment claims in the county have declined for the past five weeks on record, they still remain historically high.
A total of 338 workers filed unemployment claims the week ending May 16, the latest data available, raising the total number of jobless claims to 9,588 since March 15, according to the Indiana Department of Workforce Development.
More than 640,000 unemployment claims have been filed in Indiana since the pandemic took hold in the United States in mid-March, according to the Indiana Department of Workforce Development.
“Our weekly claims filings have declined week over week since our peak back in March,” said Fred Payne, commissioner of the Indiana Department of Workforce Development. “For the week ending May 23, we saw 26,278 initial claims filed. We’ve also seen at total of 1.3 million unemployment insurance payments made in the month of May, totaling close to $1 billion.”
The latest unemployment figures released this week by the U.S. Labor Department bring to 41 million the running total of Americans who have filed for unemployment benefits since the coronavirus shutdowns took hold in mid-March, according to the The Associated Press.
Despite a few glimmers of hope, there were some encouraging signs: The overall number of Americans currently drawing jobless benefits dropped for the first time since the crisis began, from 25 million to 21 millions.
First-time applications for unemployment benefits have fallen for eight straight weeks, as states gradually let stores, restaurants and other businesses reopen and the auto industry starts up factories again.
But the number of U.S. workers filing for unemployment benefits is still extraordinarily high by historical standards, and that suggests businesses are failing or permanently downsizing, not just laying off people until the crisis can pass, economists warn.
“That is the kind of economic destruction you cannot quickly put back in the bottle,” Adam Ozimek, chief economist at Upwork, told the The Associated Press.
