Delaware unemployment still going up

Delaware’s unemployment rate is headed in the opposite direction of the national rate, which has been falling over the past few months.

The national unemployment rate stands at 7.4 percent for July, a big improvement over last July’s 8.2 percent. Delaware’s unemployment rate is also 7.4 percent, but the state’s rate has been climbing over the past few months.

Despite the rising rate, the Delaware Labor Department reports that personal income growth in Delaware has outpaced income growth on the national scale.  But even so, Delaware’s unemployment rate still climbs. It has perplexed Labor Department leaders who write in their Monthly Labor Review, “Looking at the totality of the data, there is no obvious reason or explanation for that disparity.”

A total of 32,700 Delawareans were unemployed in Delaware in July, up from 32,300 in July 2012.