Unemployment in Bartholomew County increased in June but remained among the lowest in Indiana as the U.S. labor market continued to cruise along despite higher interest rates intended to cool hiring.
The jobless rate in Bartholomew County stood at 3% in June, up from 2.6% in June 2022 and tied for the fourth lowest unemployment rate in the state, according to figures released Monday by the Indiana Department of Workforce Development.
U.S. unemployment was 3.6% in June, unchanged from June 2022. Statewide, unemployment in Indiana was 3.2%, up from 2.9% from a year earlier.
In Jackson County, the jobless rate stood at 3% last month, down from 3.2% in June 2022, while unemployment in Jennings County was 3.4%, down from 3.7% from a year earlier.
The update from state officials comes days after the Labor Department reported that U.S. applications for jobless claims fell by 9,000 to 228,000 for the week ending July 15, from 237,000 the previous week, The Associated Press reported.
The four-week moving average of claims, which evens out some of the weekly volatility, fell by 9,250 to 237,500.
Jobless claim applications are viewed as reflective of the number of layoffs in a given week.
For three weeks in late May and early June, jobless claims had appeared to reach a sustained, higher level, above 260,000, according to wire reports. But the past four weeks, claims have retreated and the labor market remains historically healthy.
Since more than 20 million jobs vanished when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in the spring of 2020, U.S. employers have added jobs at a blistering pace, more often than not beating forecasts, according to the AP. Despite the fastest interest rate hikes since 1989, the unemployment rate has hardly budged and remains historically low at 3.6%.
Fed officials have said that the unemployment rate needs to rise well past 4% to bring inflation down, but a report last week showed that consumer prices fell to their lowest level since early 2021 — 3% in June compared with a year earlier — and much closer to the Fed’s target of 2%.
The U.S. economy has broadly been resilient in the face of the Federal Reserve’s aggressive rate-hiking campaign in its effort to extinguish persistent inflation not seen since the early 1980s.
The U.S. economy grew at a 2% annual pace from January through March, according to wire reports. Combined with a resilient labor market, most economists now expect Fed officials to go through with another rate hike or two before the end of the year in its ongoing fight against inflation.
Overall, 1.75 million people were collecting unemployment benefits the week that ended July 8, about 33,000 more than the previous week.
Locally, a total of 20 people workers were receiving jobless benefits the week ending July 8, down from 107 the week before, according to the latest figures from the Indiana Department of Workforce Development.
