Local unemployment rate drops

The unemployment rate in Goodhue County dropped to 6.7 percent last month, down from 7.3 percent in August. This is the lowest the county’s unemployment rate has been since November 2008, when it was 5.8 percent.

But Jinny Moore, area manager of the Goodhue and Wabasha County Workforce Centers, says she isn’t sure if people should view the data through rose-colored glasses.

Moore hopes the statistics indicate there are more fulltime jobs in the marketplace, but she said the numbers could reflect other developments.

“It’s hard to speculate,” she said. “We’ve definitely had a lot more job openings in the last month compared to the summer.”

But she said that could be the result of requests for seasonal work, not fulltime jobs that would keep people off the unemployment rolls.

“We’ve also seen a lot of people fall off the back end of unemployment,” Moore said. Unemployment benefits have expired for some people who are out of work and they are no longer

counted in unemployment data, she

explained.

Minnesota’s unemployment rate fell to 7.3 percent in September,

down from 8 percent in August.

Meanwhile, the nation’s unemployment figures increased 0.1 percent last month, to 9.8 percent.

Tags: business news, goodhue county, business, unemployment