Morgan County’s unemployment rate appears to have leveled off.
Locally, the unemployment rate from November to December stayed at 3.7%. The steady rate ends 7 straight months of swift decline.
Morgan County is at odds with the state trend, which saw the statewide unemployment rate dip for the 9th straight month.
Strikingly, Scott County actually saw a rise in unemployment from the previous month to 4.9%, after hovering at or below 4% for several months. Despite that anomaly, the remainder of the area remained at 3.4-3.7% unemployment. Brown County remains the lowest in the area at 2.1%.
In over the year numbers for metro areas, Springfield had the third largest unemployment rate decrease at 3.4% compared to 2020.
While this may mean good news for the state’s economy, it appears recovery from the coronavirus recession in the local economy has somewhat leveled off.