July Unemployment Rate Stays Unchanged, Supply Chain Issues Still Cause Problems

Justin Hicks

Article origination IPBS-RJC

The state's unemployment rate stayed the same from June to July although hiring rates in many industries show promising signs of recovery.
*Lauren Chapman/IPB News*

Indiana’s unemployment rate remained unchanged between June and July, standing at 4.1 percent, but some areas are seeing job recovery faster than others.

Despite the static unemployment rate, employment continued an upward hike in almost all major business sectors in July, including some of the ones hardest hit by the pandemic like leisure and hospitality. A few sectors, like government and finance, lost more than 8,000 jobs.

But unemployment rates are still hovering at about 8 percent in Lake County, in northwest Indiana, and the Kokomo area.

Charlie Sparks of the Greater Kokomo Economic Development Alliance said, for his region, it’s reflective of lingering supply chain issues affecting the automotive plants in the area.

“We have quite a bit of durable goods manufacturing here, a lot of automotive, and those particular firms have been impacted by the global chip shortage,” he said.

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The Department of Workforce Development estimates there are about 143,000 job openings across the state. That would mean there are about 5,000 more open jobs than people actively searching for work.

Contact reporter Justin at jhicks@wvpe.org or follow him on Twitter at @Hicks_JustinM.

Tags:unemployment

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