Webster County’s unemployment rate fell to a modern record low of under 2% last month, according to preliminary data from the Mississippi Department of Employment Security.
The jobless rate here was 1.7% in April, which MDES statistics from 1990 forward show is the county’s lowest rate ever recorded in those 34 years. The previous record low was last November’s 2.3% and the 12-month moving average is 2.9%.
April’s unemployment rate was down eight-tenths of a percentage point from March’s 2.5% and the same rate in April 2023. Webster’s rate was tied with eight other counties as the 15th lowest unemployment rate in the state.
The county’s highest unemployment rate for April was recorded in 1991, when it reached 16.8%.
The number of unemployed Webster Countians in April decreased by 30 to an estimated 70. The labor force, the number of qualified employees working or seeking to work, increased by 10 to an estimated 3,830.
April jobless rates in adjoining counties: Calhoun, 1.7%; Chickasaw, 2.3%; Choctaw, 1.7%; Clay, 2.6%; Grenada, 1.9%; Montgomery, 1.9%; and Oktibbeha, 1.8%. The state’s not seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for April was 1.8% and the national rate was 3.5%.
