By DAVE SCHULTZ
More than 10,000 more people in the Fort Wayne metropolitan area — a designation that includes Allen, Wells, and Whitley counties — were working in August as compared to a year ago, according to unemployment statistics from the Indiana Department of Workforce Development.
The same report shows that Wells County’s preliminary unemployment rate for August was 2.1 percent — tied for the second-lowest rate in Indiana. Boone and Ohio counties have unemployment rates of 2.0 percent, with Adams, Hamilton, Whitley, and Wells at 2.1 percent.
The Fort Wayne metro area had 10,190 workers employed in August than were working a year ago — 205,458 in 2021 and 215,648 in 2022. “At the same time, the number of Fort Wayne area unemployed workers – those not working but actively seeking work – went down 29 percent year over year, from 8,596 to 6,105,” the report said. “The metro’s unemployment rate also dropped to 2.8 percent compared to 4.0 percent for August 2021.”
All but one of the 11 counties in Economic Growth Region 3 — Adams, Allen, DeKalb, Huntington, LaGrange, Noble, Steuben, Wabash, Wells and Whitley — had an unemployment rate below the state’s 3.1 percent.
By the numbers, the unemployment percentages for those counties in EG Region 3 that have not already been mentioned are Whitley, 2.2; LaGrange, 2.3; DeKalb, 2.5; Huntington, 2.6; Allen and Wabash, 2.8; Noble, 3.0; and Grant, 3.3. Two other area counties that are not in EG Region 3 are Jay, at 2.6, and Blackford, 3.2.
The statistical analysis, compiled by Rachel Blakeman, director of Purdue University Fort Wayne’s Community Research Institute, and Rick Farrant, director of communications for Northeast Indiana Works, notes that only two counties in Indiana — Howard, with an unemployment rate of 6.9 percent, and Lake, at 5.2 percent — have an unemployment rate of more than 5 percent. Five percent is considered the threshold for full employment.
Therefore, the report said, “90 of the state’s 92 counties have full employment.”
Farrant tied the results to the effort by northeast Indiana counties to increase the region’s population to 1 million people.
“Increasing the region’s population – and therefore workers — by attracting people from outside Indiana remains a goal northeast Indiana must continue pursuing,” Farrant said. “It seems likely that if the demand for workers remains strong, northeast Indiana will not have enough people interested in working to meet employers’ needs.”
daves@news-banner.com
