LANSING, MI (WHTC-AM/FM) – Joblessness continues to climb along the Lakeshore.
In numbers released on Thursday by the Michigan Department of Technology, Management and Budget, Ottawa County’s seasonally unadjusted employment rate for January stood at 3.7 percent, up a half a percentage point from December, and it’s the third straight monthly increase. Compared to a year ago, it’s two tenths of a percentage point higher. However, Ottawa County had the second lowest unemployment rate among Michigan’s 83 counties in January, topped only by Washtenaw County’s 3.6 percent.
Allegan County saw similar trends with its 4.7 percent jobless rate in January. While it was 10th overall in the state, it was still nine tenths of a percentage point higher than December, and two tenths more than 12 months earlier.
Unemployment statewide rose in January, but Jason Palmer, director of the Bureau of Labor Market Information and Strategic Initiatives, said that the trends were “very typical … with the onset of the winter months,” and added that, over the past year, moderate jobless rate declines and payroll jobs increases were recorded in most local labor markets.
