Unemployment at 14.6 percent in Kokomo for March 2009

scott.smith@kokomotribune.com

Preliminary unemployment figures for March showed a 14.6 unemployment rate in Kokomo.

That number doesn't even include any seasonal layoffs.

The Kokomo region now has the second-highest regional unemployment rate in the state, behind only Elkhart/Goshen's 18.8 percent.

In the past year, unemployment in Indiana has almost doubled, with 162,417 Hoosiers being added to the unemployment rolls.

In the Kokomo region, the ranks of the unemployed have jumped by 2,800 in the past year, basically matching the state as a whole by doubling the number of local unemployed.

Center Township Trustee Jean Lushin attended a forum Friday at Indiana University Kokomo aimed at dealing with the unemployment problem, and said requests for public assistance are skyrocketing.

Lushin increased direct assistance to individuals by 36 percent last year compared to 2007, and said the situation continues to deteriorate locally.

He said assistance in the first quarter of 2009 increased by another 25 percent over last year's increase.

"You have to add another 6 percent or 7 percent [on top of the unemployment rate] of the underemployed," Lushin said. "There are a lot of underemployed people right now."

Kokomo's economy is going through its worst downturn since 1982, when unemployment averaged 17.2 percent for an entire year.

During that period, Kokomo lost up to 10 percent from its population peak in the late 1970s and never regained it.

Now it appears Kokomo is shrinking again, with the area work force continuing to decline.

According to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Kokomo area work force shrunk by more than 500 jobs in the past 12 months.

"A lot of the people recently laid off are still collecting unemployment and living off savings," Lushin said. "We haven't really begun to see those people [at the trustee's office] yet."