Jobless Rate Increases In May

Jobless Rate Increases In May

By David Howell

Editor

WATER VALLEY – After a two-month decline this spring, the county’s jobless rate is back up in May with 340 people out of work, according to the latest statistics from the Mississippi Department of Employment Security (MDES). With the county’s total labor force estimated at 5,090, MDES calculated Yalobusha’s unemployment rate at 6.7 percent.

That increase follows a historic low in April, when MDES estimated the county’s unemployment rate of 4.9 percent with only 250 workers in the labor force out of work. The labor force is defined as the estimated number of people eligible for work or actively seeking employment, but those figures don’t include people who have given up on looking or are no longer participating in the labor force.

Statewide, the job count declined by 2,200, but MDES reports that is a normal pattern for May as the influences of weather, holidays, the opening and closing of schools and other recurring seasonal events. The state’s unemployment rate was six percent.

In comparison with the five surrounding counties, Yalobusha’s rate was lower than Panola (7.8) and Tallahatchie (6.5), but higher than Lafayette (5.1), Calhoun (5.8) and Grenada (5.6). 

For the month of May 2016, twenty-seven counties in Mississippi posted unemployment rates less than or equal to the state’s rate of 6.0 percent. Rankin County posted the lowest unemployment rate for the month of May at 4.2 percent followed by DeSoto and Madison Counties at 4.5 percent. Jefferson County had the highest unemployment rate for May at 15.3 percent followed by Issaquena County at 12.9 percent.