Putnam jobless rate same as the state

Exactly the state average.

That’s how the Putnam County unemployment figure for December stacks up this month. The latest mark is 3.4 percent, two-tenths of a percentage point better than the county’s November number, yet four rungs lower in the overall Indiana county jobless rankings.

The new Putnam jobless figure of 3.4 percent is good enough for a tie with four other counties -- Henry, Harrison, Fulton and Clark -- for 48th best among Indiana’s 92 counties, according to the December jobless numbers released this week by the Indiana Department of Workforce Development.

The Putnam figure for November was 3.6 percent, which placed 44th overall in last month’s rankings.

For December, the Putnam figure remains better than all other contiguous counties with the exceptions of Hendricks, Morgan and Montgomery, all of which landed in the top 35. Hendricks County posted a 2.8 percent mark to tie for 14th best overall, while Montgomery earned a tie for 31st best with its 3.1 percent jobless mark for the month and Morgan tied for 35th best at 3.2 percent.

Among the other contiguous counties, Owen, Parke and Clay all tumbled into the bottom 20 for the month.

Owen, at 4.3 percent, and Parke, at 4.1 percent, were back to back at 11th and 12th worst, respectively. Clay County, at 3.8 percent, was in a tie for the 19th worst showing overall.

Putnam County did again post the best numbers of all the west-central Indiana counties in December, topping Vermillion (5.7 percent), Greene (4.8), Vigo (4.6 percent) and Sullivan (4.5) as well as the previously noted Clay, Parke and Owen.

Meanwhile, the 10 best Hoosier jobless rates for December belong to the counties of Tipton, a new No. 1 at 2.3 percent; Dubois, 2.4; Bartholomew, Gibson and Boone, 2.5; Hamilton, LaGrange and Adams, 2.6; and Posey, Martin, Johnson and Daviess, all tied for 10th at 2.7 percent.

At the opposite end of the Hoosier unemployment spectrum, counties posting December’s worst Indiana jobless rates were Vermillion, 5.7; Crawford and Lake, 5.2; Greene, 4.8; Fayette and LaPorte, 4.7 percent; Starke and Vigo, 4.6; Newton and Sullivan, 4.5 percent.

Indiana’s unemployment rate last month remained at 3.4 percent, lower than the national rate of 3.9 percent. The state’s jobless rate has decreased seven percentage points since July 2009 — the high point of unemployment in Indiana.

The 3.4 percent Hoosier mark for December is also better than the contiguous states of Michigan (4.0), Illinois (4.3), Kentucky (4.4) and Ohio (4.6).

More Hoosiers are working than ever before as Indiana ended 2018 by reporting record employment numbers for the year and job gains in every major sector measured by the state.

The Indiana Department of Workforce Development reported that the total number of employed Hoosiers in December preliminarily reached 3,284,190, while private employment hit 2,731,600 — both new highs for the state. Total preliminary private employment in 2018 grew by 42,700 people from the previous peak in December 2017, according to DWD.

Dating back to July 2009, Indiana has gained 408,400 private jobs since state employment bottomed out during the recession. That translates to private sector job growth of 17.6 percent — better than the Midwest region, which registered 13.4 percent employment growth during that period.

Also, Indiana’s labor force participation rate in December stood at 65.1 percent. The rate has now outperformed the national average (63.1 percent) for 55 consecutive months.