Putnam jobless rate couple ticks higher than state, U.S. marks

The latest Putnam County jobless figure of 4.3 percent is good enough for a tie for 49th best among Indiana’s 92 counties, according to the February jobless numbers released this week by the Indiana Department of Workforce Development.

Overall Indiana and the U.S. both posted a 4.1 percent jobless mark for February.

Putnam County was knotted with seven other counties -- Wayne, Union, Spencer, Henry, Harrison, Fulton and Benton -- for the 49th spot in the monthly standings.

The Putnam unemployment figure for January was 3.4 percent, which had placed it 48th overall in rankings released last month.

For February, 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 40. Hendricks County posted a 3.3 percent mark to tie for ninth best overall, while Montgomery earned a tie for 23rd best with its 3.6 percent jobless mark for the month and Morgan tied for 40th best at 4.1 percent.

Among the other contiguous counties, Owen, Parke and Clay all languished in the bottom 25 for another month.

Owen, at 5.4 percent was 10th worst for February, while Parke, at 4.8 percent, was tied for 15th worst. Clay County, at 4.6 percent, was in a tie for the 22nd worst jobless rate showing overall.

For February, Putnam County again posted the best numbers of all the west-central Indiana counties, topping Vermillion (7.0 percent), Greene (5.8), Vigo and Sullivan (both 5.5) as well as the previously noted Clay, Parke and Owen.

Meanwhile, the top 10 Hoosier jobless rates for February belong to the counties of Hamilton, Gibson, Dubois and Boone, all tied for the top spot at 3.1 percent; Bartholomew, Jackson, Adams and Kosciusko, 3.2; and Hendricks, LaGrange, Posey and Daviess, all tied for ninth at 3.3 percent.

At the opposite end of the Hoosier unemployment spectrum, counties posting the worst Indiana jobless rates for February were Vermillion, 7.0 percent; Crawford, 6.3; LaPorte and Newton, 5.9; Lake, 5.2; Greene, 4.8 and Starke, 5.8; and Vigo and Sullivan, 5.5 percent; and Owen, 5.4.