Attala County unemployment rates rose slightly to 6.8 percent while the rest of the state is seeing its lowest rate in 12 years, the Mississippi Department of Employment Security announced Friday.
The jobless rate was 6.5 percent in September. It was 7.4 percent in October 2015.
The unemployment rate is calculated by a survey that asks how many people are looking for a job. A second survey each month asks employers how many people are on their payrolls, a measure many economists use as their top labor market indicator. Additionally, labor statistics do not count someone who is out of work but not looking for a job as unemployed.
The lowest October rate in records dating back to 1990 for the county was in 1995 when it was at 6.2 percent. The highest for the month was in 1990 when it reached 11.2 percent. The Attala County workforce was at 6,480 in October 2016, which was down from 6,520 for the same month in 2015. Of the October labor force, 480 people of the 6,960 in the civilian labor force were unemployed.
This is the lowest level of unemployment since February 2004 when the rate was also 5.7%. The November 2016 rate is two-tenths of a percentage point lower than a month earlier in October 2016, when the rate was 5.9%, and nine-tenths of a percentage point lower than a year ago in November 2015, when the rate was 6.6%.
The number of unemployed Mississippians also dropped in November by 1,600 to 73,400. This is the lowest number of Mississippians without jobs since January 2004 when 73,100 were unemployed. The November 2016 figure is 11,900 lower than a year ago in November 2015
October jobless rates in adjoining counties were
• Carroll, 7.4 percent
• Choctaw, 4.9 percent
• Holmes, 9.6 percent
• Leake, 6.9 percent
• Madison, 4.4 percent
• Montgomery, 6.9 percent
• Neshoba, 5.8 percent
• Winston, 7 percent
• Yazoo, 6.7 percent
