Indiana unemployment at 25-year high

By Keith Benman, Times of Northwest Indiana
keith.benman@nwi.com

Indiana's unemployment rate leapt upward to a 25-year high of 9.2 percent in January, with 319,801 Hoosiers unable to find work.

In Northwest Indiana, the unemployment rate soared to 9.9 percent the same month, with 33,228 people out of work. That compares to a region unemployment rate of just 5.4 percent one year ago.

Plunging auto sales and slow sales at stores were behind much of the drop, with 30,200 Hoosiers thrown out of work in manufacturing and retail in January, according to Indiana Department of Workforce Development statistics.

"Employment dropped in transportation and wholesale ... in Indiana in January, and there was a greater-than-usual decline in retail employment following the holiday shopping season," said Teresa Voors, commissioner of the department.

The last time unemployment was higher in Indiana was in January 1984, when it was 9.6 percent, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Indiana released its January numbers on the same day the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the national unemployment rate hit 8.1 percent in February.

Other regions of the state have been hit even harder by the recession, many of them the site of Big 3 auto plants that have closed and likely with more closures on the way.

Kokomo's unemployment rate soared to 16.5 percent in January from 9.9 percent the month before, with 3,431 people thrown out of work. In both Anderson and Michigan City, the unemployment rate hit 11.1 percent.

The Elkhart-Goshen area, hard hit by the collapse of the recreational vehicle industry, continued to have the highest unemployment rate in the state, with the January rate rising to 18.3 percent from 16 percent the month before.