The IBJ
Indiana's unemployment soared to 10 percent in March, according to figures released this morning by the Indiana Department of Workforce Development.
The rate climbed from a revised seasonally adjusted 9.4 percent in February. The last time the state had double-digit unemployment was November 1983.
The state now ranks eighth in the nation in unemployment. In March 2008, Indiana's unemployment rate was 5.3 percent.
The Indianapolis metropolitan area's non-seasonally adjusted rate jumped a half-percentage point, to 8.7 percent, according to the report. The number of unemployed in the area leapt from 73,088 in February to 77,462 in March - a jump of 4,374, the report said.
Non-seasonally adjusted figures are most accurately compared with the same month in prior years. Joblessness in the Indianapolis area was 4.7 percent in March 2008, meaning the region saw its rate nearly double in one a year.
Indiana's unemployment numbers rose from 324,260 in February to 339,254 in March - a jump of 14,994. That's way up from the 4,500 jobs the state lost from January to February, but fewer than the 17,413 it lost from December to January.
"Uncertainty the manufacturing sector, particularly automotive, is causing a ripple effect in Indiana," Teresa Voors, commissioner of the Indiana Department of Workforce Development, said in a prepared statement. "We saw employment declines in auto manufacturing, transportation and logistics as Indiana plants produce, assemble, transport and warehouse fewer products."
In the Midwest, Indiana's 0.6-percentage-point month-to-month increase was equal to jumps in Kentucky and Michigan. Michigan leads the Midwest in unemployment, at 12.6 percent, followed by Indiana, Kentucky at 9.8 percent, Ohio at 9.7 percent and Illinois at 9.1 percent.
Indiana's unemployment rate continues to exceed the national jobless rate, which was 8.5 percent in March, up from 8.1 in February.