The unemployment rate for Newton County fell to 3.6 percent for the month of April, the lowest by far since 2017.
The state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was reported at 4.1 percent to a new historic low. The rate was 2.1 percentage points lower than the 6.2 percent reported for April 2021. The Nation’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was unchanged over the month at 3.6 percent and was 2.4 percentage points lower than the year ago rate of 6.0 percent.
The seasonally unadjusted jobless rate for the state was 3.6 percent, increasing 0.1 percentage points from the March. The rate is 2.1 percentage points lower than the same time in 2014.
Newton County was one of seven counties in the state that posted a 3.6 percent unemployment rate. It was tied for 28th in the state in jobless numbers. Rankin County again posted the lowest jobless rate of all 82 counties at 2.5 percent and Jefferson County had the highest at 11.9.
Of the counties surrounding Newton County, Scott County had the lowest unemployment rate at 3 percent while Smith County had 3.2 percent. Lauderdale was one of the counties tied with Newton while Leake County followed with 3.7 percent and Neshoba with 3.8 percent. Clarke County was next with a 4.6 percent jobless followed by Jasper County with 4.7 percent and Kemper with 5.2 percent.
Newton County had a labor force of 8,370 workers with 8,070 being employed and only 300 reporting unemployed. The county saw an increase in the workforce of 110 laborers since March and 140 from April 2021. However, there were 10 less unemployed workers in March but there were 460 unemployed in April 2021.
The average unemployment for Newton County over the last 12 months is 4.9 percent with an average workforce of 8,230.
Newton County is far ahead of April 2020 when the unemployment rate was 13.1 percent after La-Z-Boy shut down operations in the middle of the pandemic.
For April 2022, Newton only had 22 initial unemployment claims with 55 continued claims. That is up slightly from 19 initial claims but down from 74 continued claims in March.
This year’s claims in April were also one-third of the initial claims last year and drastically down from 468 continued claims last year. Only $8,844 were paid in unemployment claims this year compared with $635,016 last year.
