Published: October 29, 2009 10:35 pm      

Mixed employment signals for Clark and Floyd counties

Jobless rates dropped, but labor force also declined

Clark and Floyd counties are below the Louisville Metro, Indiana and Kentucky rates for unemployment, a report showed Wednesday.

Louisville Metro’s unemployment rate dropped to 10 percent in September, down from 10.3 percent in August according to a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics study.

An Indiana Department of Workforce Development report last week recorded Floyd County’s unemployment rate at 7.4 percent for September, down from 8.3 percent the previous month.

Only 12 of Indiana’s 92 counties had a lower unemployment rate in September than Floyd. Daviess County’s 4.9 percent jobless mark in September was the lowest.

Clark County’s jobless rate also decreased in September to 8.2 percent compared to 8.8 percent in August. Elkhart County retained the top unemployment rate in the state last month at 15 percent.

Indiana’s jobless mark was 9.6 percent in September.

But locally, the drop in unemployment percentage doesn’t necessarily indicate an increase in the workforce according to Uric Dufrene, Sanders chair of the Indiana University Southeast business department.

For Louisville Metro — which includes Floyd and Clark counties — the number of unemployed declined by 1,700 people and the labor force declined by approximately 1,500 positions.

But the number of employed from August to September only increased by 250.

“If the unemployed are switching to employed status, we should see an approximate — similar — increase in the number employed,” or the decline in unemployed should be similar to the increase in the employed, Dufrene said.

In Clark and Floyd, the number of employed people actually declined from August to September.

“So in this particular instance, this month’s decline cannot be totally attributed to an increase in the number of people employed, but likely due to discouraged workers exiting the labor force,” Dufrene said.

To back this claim, Dufrene points to another Bureau of Labor Statistics study for states. It showed an alternative unemployment rate from the fourth quarter of 2008 to the third quarter of 2009 at 16.6 percent.

That study takes into account the jobless, marginally attached workers and part-time employees who saw a reduction in work hours for economic reasons.

A marginally-attached worker has sought employment within 12 months of their last job but were not counted as jobless because they had not searched for work in the four weeks prior to an unemployment survey.

Still, having an unemployment rate lower than most counties in Indiana is nothing to shrug at said Michael Dalby, president of the economic development agency One Southern Indiana.

“We would like to attribute that to a lot of the work that has been done to companies that even in the middle of the recession, have been able to add jobs or expand their operations,” Dalby said.

Floyd and Clark counties have a diverse workforce which keeps them from being as susceptible to job loss during a recession, Dalby said.

“I think we have a lot of privately-held, locally-owned businesses that have been able to not be at the whims of Wall Street, or the larger investment banks,” Dalby said. “They have been able to do work and hang in there while still making adjustments they need to make.”

Over the last three years, Floyd and Clark have seen 53 economic expansion projects for area companies or relocations to the counties, creating about 4,900 jobs, Dalby said.

But to those that have lost their jobs, having an unemployment rate lower than other counties is not enough, Dalby said. With signs the economy is sluggishly moving towards recovery, he hopes Floyd and Clark will be a good position to capitalize on employment gains when the down spell breaks.

“Things that happened in the 2007-2008 time frame have kept us from getting hit too hard by this recession — mitigated the hit,” Dalby said. “But we still have a lot of people that are out of work. We’re hopeful that we can keep this momentum going forward to create more jobs and see the economy improve.”