Unemployment in Bartholomew County ticked up slightly in June for the second consecutive month, the Indiana Department of Workforce Development said Monday.
Last month, the jobless rate in the county was 3.7%, up from 3.6% in May and 3.3% in April. Jackson County saw a similar increase in unemployment, reaching 4% last month, up from 3.8% the month before. Unemployment in Jennings County was 4.7% in June, up from 4.5% in May.
By comparison, U.S. unemployment was a seasonally adjusted 5.9% in June, up slightly from 5.8% the month before. Indiana’s unemployment rate was 4.1% last month, up from 4% in May.
However, initial jobless claims in Bartholomew County spiked the week ending July 10, reaching 519, up from 66 the week before, according to most recent state data.
Currently, it is not clear why jobless claims went up nearly eight-fold in one week.
Greater Columbus (Indiana) Economic Development Corp. President Jason Hester said he was unaware of any major layoffs in Bartholomew County.
Indiana Department of Workforce Development spokesman Scott Olson told The Republic that the department is looking into why Bartholomew County saw such a large increase in initial unemployment claims, but initially suspected that the spike was likely due to a “Quarter Change,” which is when claimants need to reapply for unemployment to continue receiving federal benefits through September.
In April, Bartholomew County saw a similar spike in initial jobless claims, when claims rose to 816 the week ending April 10, up from 127 the week before, which state officials attributed to a quarter change.
Jackson and Jennings counties also saw similar spikes in initial jobless claims the week ending July 10, state records show. There were 280 initial jobless claims filed in Jackson County the week of July 10, up from 35 the week before. In Jennings County, there were 198 claims filed, up from 26 the week before.
Despite the spike two weeks ago, jobless claims still remain far below where they were in spring 2020, when at least 1,000 Bartholomew County workers filed claims for five consecutive weeks.
By comparison, an average of 29 workers in Bartholomew County filed initial unemployment claims each week from 2015 to 2019, and the total number of workers drawing unemployment benefits never exceeded 398 during any week over the same time period.
The monthly update from the Indiana Department of Workforce Development came just days after the federal government reported that the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits the week ending July 10 reached its lowest level since the pandemic struck, The Associated Press reported.
Thursday’s report from the Labor Department showed that jobless claims fell by 26,000 last week to 360,000, according to wire reports. The weekly tally, a proxy for layoffs, has fallen more or less steadily since topping 900,000 in early January.
The U.S. recovery from the recession is proceeding so quickly that many forecasters have predicted that the economy will expand this year by roughly 7%, according to the AP. That would be the most robust calendar-year growth since 1984.
In response, businesses have scrambled to meet the unexpected surge in customer demand. They are posting job openings — a record 9.2 million in May — faster than they can fill them, according to wire reports. The worker shortage in many industries is causing employers to raise wages and in some cases to raise prices to offset their higher labor costs.
The supply of potential hires is being held back by a variety of factors, according to wire reports. Many Americans still have health concerns about working around large numbers of people. Many people, mostly women, are no longer working or looking for work because they had to care for children when schools and day care centers shut down. And roughly 2.6 million older workers took advantage of enlarged stock portfolios and home values to retire early.
A temporary $300-a-week federal unemployment benefit, on top of regular state jobless aid, may be enabling some people to be more selective in looking for and taking jobs, according to wire reports. Roughly half the states plan to stop paying the supplement by the end of July in what proponents say is an effort to nudge more of the unemployed to seek jobs.
Before COVID-19 swept across the state in March 2020, Bartholomew County’s unemployment rate was 2.5% — 1.2% lower than it was last month.
Hester said he suspects part of the reason why Bartholomew County hasn’t returned to employment levels seen just before the pandemic is due to the extended federal unemployment benefits.
“I think … the extended unemployment benefits are incentivizing a certain amount of people to not go back to work,” Hester said. “…I think if you talk to any employer, whether they are a mom-and-pop restaurant all the way up through our larger manufacturers in the communities, they would say they’re looking to hire people and there aren’t enough applicants.”
