Unemployment rates in the Golden Triangle dropped noticeably in February.
February’s jobless figures, released Wednesday by the Mississippi Department of Employment Security, shows the unemployment rates among the four Golden Triangle counties by a range of 0.8 percent (Noxubee County) to 1.6 percent (Oktibbeha County). Those rates fell by l.9 percent in Lowndes County and 1.2 percent in Clay County.
Oktibbeha County’s 5.3 unemployment rate is the 11th lowest of the state’s 82 counties.
The jobless rates in all four counties were noticeably lower in February than in February 2015, especially in Clay County, where the unemployment rate dropped by 3.3 percent compared to a year ago February.
MDES data shows there were 3,950 eligible workers without jobs in the Golden Triangle in February, most of them in Lowndes (1,680) and Oktibbeha (1,250) counties.
The state and national unemployment rates followed a similar pattern. Mississippi’s unemployment rate in February was 6.2 percent compared to 7.0 percent in January and 6.6 percent in February 2015.
The U.S. jobless rate for February was 5.2 percent, down from 5.3 percent in January and 5.8 percent in February 2015.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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