Mississippi’s unemployment rate hit another record low in February, according to the Mississippi Department of Employment Security’s monthly report.
The report, released on Wednesday, says Mississippi’s seasonally-adjusted rate fell from 4.6 in January to 4.5 percent in February. The 4.6 percent unemployment rate, first reached in December 2017, was the previous record for the lowest rate since the U.S. Labor Department started calculating state unemployment rates in January 1976.
Seasonally-adjusted rates take normal seasonal changes, such as students getting out of school for the summer and looking for jobs, into account when calculating the unemployment rate. Seasonally unadjusted rates do not. The rates are often different, but for February, the state’s seasonally unadjusted rate matched the seasonally-adjusted 4.5 percent.
Unemployment rates for the Golden Triangle’s three counties have held steady or dropped from revised January rates, according to the report. Clay’s County’s rate of 5.6 percent is .2 percent lower; Oktibbeha County’s rate of 4 percent is .5 percent lower, and Lowndes County’s held steady at 4.7 percent.
Revised rates for February 2017, which show the final unemployment figures, were not available in Wednesday’s report. They’re expected to return next month.
On a municipal level, Columbus’ rate rose slightly to 5 percent from 4.9 percent in January, and Starkville’s dipped to 3.5 percent from 3.8 percent. No data was available for West Point.
County and city-level data is only available as seasonally-unadjusted rates.
MDES Chief of Labor Market Information Mary Willoughby said the state’s continued, steady decline in unemployment rate is likely due to general economic strength. She said Mississippi’s seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate has gone down or stayed the same every month since July 2012.
She said the relatively steady labor market is normal for this time of year.
“February to March is usually pretty stable,” she said. “We had a big change in 2006, but that was coming back from Hurricane Katrina.”
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 37 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.