Montgomery County's unemployment rates continue climb for March 2009

(Crawfordsville) The Paper of Montgomery County

Saturday, April 18, 2009 4:12 AM

By Barry Lewis, The Paper of Montgomery County assistant publiser

To no one's surprise the unemployment rates for the state of Indiana and Montgomery County continue to climb according to figures released Thursday by Indiana Department of Workforce Development.

According to the figures, the state's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for March was 10.0 percent, up from 9.4 percent in February compared with 5.3 percent in March of last year.

Montgomery County's unemployment rate for March was 9.8 percent, up from 9.1 percent last month. The 0.7 percent increase was a slight improvement over the 0.8 percent increase from January to February. The county has the 28th lowest rate of Indiana's 92 counties.

Since January, the state's unemployment rate has gone from 9.2 percent to 10 percent. The national seasonal average is 8.5 percent.

For the second month in a row, Montgomery County's rate climbed faster than either the state or the national average.

The state now has 63 counties with an unemployment rate of more than 10 percent, with the addition of five counties last month. LaGrange has taken over as the top county with a rate of 18.9 percent followed by Elkhart reporting 18.8 percent.

Locally, six of the seven counties surrounding Montgomery County had increases in their jobless rates. Putnam County remained steady at 11.2 percent. Fountain had the largest jump (11.8 percent vs.10.3 percent). Surrounding county rates include: Boone (7.7 percent, up from 7.3 percent), Clinton (11.3 percent, up from 10.5 percent), Hendricks (7.7 percent, up from 7.3 percent), Parke (11.3 percent, up from 11.2 percent) and Tippecanoe (8.5 percent, up from 8.2 percent).

According to the state figures our county has a labor force of 18,707. Of that total, 1,836 are unemployed. The total number of jobless individuals in Montgomery County rose by 136 in March. In March of 2008 there were just 875 unemployed workers in the county and the unemployment rate was 4.5 percent. Montgomery County finished 2008 at 6.6 percent.

Indiana's unemployment reaches double digits in March 2009
LaGrange County tops state in unemployment rate for March 2009
Elkhart County March 2009 jobless numbers rise, but now 2nd to LaGrange
Muncie unemployment tops 10 percent for March 2009
Bartholomew County March 2009 unemployment hits 9.3%, highest since 1980s

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Editor, John C. DePrez Jr.; Executive Editor, Carol Rogers; Publishers: IBRC and IAR