Webster County’s unemployment rate increased nine-tenths of a percentage point to 5.6 percent in January.
The county’s jobless rate was 4.7 percent in December and 5 percent in January 2018.
Mississippi Department of Employment Security statistics from 1990 forward show the county’s highest unemployment rate for January came in 2003, when it reached 16 percent. The lowest rate for that period was in 1998, when it dropped to 4.9 percent.
The number of unemployed Webster Countians in January increased by 30 to 210. The labor force, which is made up of everyone who has a job or is looking for one, decreased by 60 to 3,740.
The state’s non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 5.2 percent in January while the national average, also unadjusted, was 4.4 percent.
January jobless rates in adjoining counties: Grenada, 4.6 percent; Calhoun, 5.2 percent; Choctaw, 5.2 percent; Chickasaw, 5.2 percent; Oktibbeha, 5.5 percent; Montgomery, 6 percent; Clay, 6.1 percent.
