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Last updated on Wednesday, March 26, 2008
(BEDFORD) - More bad economic news for the Lawrence County area. Unemployment continues to rise.
Lawrence County unemployment jumped from 6.1% to 7% from December to January, which is the most recent data assembled by the Indiana Department of Workforce Development.
However, despite such a jump, Lawrence County maintains its ranking of 5th place on the list of counties with the worst unemployment.
The entire 8th Economic Growth Region, which includes Lawrence, Brown, Daviess, Greene, Martin, Monroe, Orange and Owen counties saw an increase of 0.7% to 4.8%.
Bedford also continued its unemployment rise, going from 8.5% to 10.1% in January, maintaining Bedford's place as having the third worst unemployment of the region's county seats, again with Nashville and Spencer having worse problems, the latter being in worst shape with an unemployment rate of 13.8%.
Both the national and state numbers crossed the 5% marker, which is a common threshold between decent rates and those that need improvement. The US is at 5.4%, Indiana at 5.1%.
Indiana is still fairing better than her neighbors though, who all also saw an increase.
Illinois saw the biggest jump of our neighbors, jumping from 5.3% to 6.2%, but Michigan still is in worst shape in the area, and in the nation at 7.8%, whereas South Dakota overtook Idaho for it's own 1st place spot in least unemployment.
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