By Boris Ladwig, The Republic
bladwig@therepublic.com
The local job market deteriorated for the sixth consecutive month in March, and Bartholomew County's unemployment rate spiked to 9.3 percent, the highest since the mid-1980s.
The rate was 0.8 percentage points higher than in February and more than doubled from a year earlier.
Other south-central Indiana counties saw similar spikes from a year earlier, with rates in Jackson, Brown, Decatur and Jennings counties all exceeding 11 percent:
Jennings: 14.3 percent.
Decatur: 13.2.
Brown: 11.6.
Jackson: 11.1.
Shelby: 11.1.
Bartholomew: 9.3.
Johnson: 8.7.
Bartholomew County employed 36,211 people in March, about 1,200 or 3.2 percent less than a year ago. Bartholomew
County lost fewer jobs, in percentage terms, than all counties surrounding it, which all recorded a jobs decline of at least 5 percent.
More than 3,700 people were looking for work in Bartholomew County in March, about 2,000 more than a year earlier for an increase of 115 percent. Surrounding counties showed spikes in the number of unemployed persons between 90 and 140 percent.
Indiana's rate in March was 10.6 percent, up from 5.5 percent a year earlier. Indiana's unemployment rate last reached 10 percent in November 1983.
The state shed more than 172,000 jobs, or about 5.7 percent in the past year.
The nation's rate rose to 9 percent, compared to 5.2 percent a year ago. Nearly 14 million people were looking for work in the U.S., up by nearly 6 million from March 2008.
Auto industry decline
State officials partially blamed continued declines in the auto industry for March's increase.
"Uncertainty in the manu facturing sector, particularly automotive, is causing a ripple effect in Indiana," said Teresa Voors, commissioner of the Indiana Department of Work force Development. "We saw employment declines in auto manufacturing, transportation and logistics as Indiana plants produce, assemble, transport and warehouse fewer products."
More than two-thirds of In diana's 92 counties had jobless rates of 10 percent or higher.
LaGrange County had the state's highest unemployment rate, at 18.9 percent. That slightly topped Elkhart County, which had a jobless rate of 18.8 percent and for months has had the dubious distinction of being the epicenter of the state's unemployment problems.
Elkhart Mayor Dick Moore said the economies of the LaGrange and Elkhart counties both rely on the troubled RV industry.
Ohio, Kentucky and Illinois all posted March seasonally adjusted jobless rates below 10 percent. Michigan had the country's highest unemployment rate at 12.6 percent.
Associated Press contributed to this article.