Area counties see slight declines in jobless rates

The employment picture in Cape Girardeau County continues to improve, according to the latest data released this week by the Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations.

Elsewhere in Southeast Missouri, the new unemployment report indicated slight unemployment-rate declines in most counties by fractions of a percentage point.

February’s county-by-county jobless data, released by the state Tuesday, places Cape Girardeau County’s latest unemployment rate at 3.9%, down four-tenths of a percentage point from January’s 4.3% rate.

The number of initial unemployment benefit claims filed by unemployed workers in the county also declined from 554 in January to 427 in February.

Although it was lower for the third consecutive month, Cape Girardeau County’s February unemployment rate was still higher than pre-pandemic levels; in January and February 2020, the county’s jobless percentages were 3.5% and 3.2%, respectively, before climbing to 9.5% in April as thousands of businesses throughout the region closed — either permanently or temporarily — because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Those closures forced millions of people — including more than 5,000 in Cape Girardeau County alone last April during the height of economic disruption.

Of the Missouri counties adjoining Cape Girardeau County, only Scott County had a significant decline in its unemployment rate in February, dropping several tenths of a percentage point to 4.5% from 4.9% in January. Meanwhile, Perry County’s jobless rate remained almost unchanged (4.1% in January compared to 4.0% in February) and Bollinger County’s rate went up from 5.0% in January to 5.4% in February.

Unemployment rates in other Southeast Missouri counties in February, compared to their January rates, were:

• Butler — 5.3%, down from 5.7%.
• Carter — 7.0%, down from 7.1%.
• Dunklin — 7.0%, down from 7.1%.
• Iron — 6.7%, down from 7.0%.
• Madison — 5.3%, down from 5.4%.
• Mississippi — 4.9%, down from 5.6%.
• New Madrid — 4.8%, down from 5.3%.
• Pemiscot — 7.9%, up from 7.6%.
• Ripley — 6.3%, down from 6.7%.
• St. Francois — 5.9%, unchanged.
• Ste. Genevieve — 4.3%, down from 4.4%.
• Stoddard — 5.5%, up from 5.4%.
• Wayne — 5.7%, down from 5.9%.

As they did in January, Taney and Stone counties in Southwest Missouri again scored the state’s highest unemployment rates in February at 13.5% and 11.9%, respectively. For the second consecutive month, the Missouri county with the lowest jobless percentage in February was Gentry, where the unemployment rate declined from 3.1% in January to 2.8% in February.

Missouri’s seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate in February was 4.2%, down from 4.3% in January, according to the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center (MERIC). The corresponding national rate was 6.2% in February, down from 6.3% the previous month, MERIC said. The non-adjusted state and national unemployment rates in February, according to that organization, were 5.0% and 6.6%, respectively.

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