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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIndiana’s unemployment rate in August remained unchanged from the previous month’s figure of 10.2 percent, the Indiana Department of Workforce Development announced Tuesday morning.
The state added 3,000 private-sector jobs in August. But the loss of seasonal government and manufacturing jobs offset any large gains in employment.
“Indiana is adding private-sector jobs three-and-a-half times faster than the U.S. as a whole,” DWD Commissioner Mark W. Everson said in a prepared statement. “Combined with new unemployment claims declining to levels not seen since 2007, we expect to see a drop in our unemployment rate in the coming months.”
Sectors reporting job growth included professional and business services, private education and health, and leisure and hospitality. Besides government and manufacturing, sectors that also reported declines included trade, transportation and utilities, as well as construction.
The state's unemployment rate remained in double digits for the fifth straight month. After having the lowest jobless rate in the Midwest for much of the economic slowdown, Indiana's rate is now among the worst.
Only Michigan has a higher rate, at 13.1 percent. The rate in Illinois and Ohio is 10.1 percent. Kentucky’s is 10 percent.
The national rate is 9.6 percent.
The number of unemployed Hoosiers decreased to 311,267 in August, from a revised 320,229 in July.
In the Indianapolis metro area, the non-seasonally adjusted jobless rate was 9.1 percent in August, down from 9.2 percent in July, but up from 8.4 percent in August 2009.
Comparisons of metro areas are most accurately made using the same months in prior years, because the government does not adjust the figures for factory furloughs and other seasonal fluctuations.
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