Unemployment stays steady

Delaware’s unemployment rate remains 8.3% for the month of October, the same rate as September.

 

The state’s unemployment rate has been declining very slowly through the year after peaking at 9.2% in February.  Since then, the rate has either remained the same or dropped a few tenths of a percent.  In September, there were 35,159 Delawareans out of work, compared to 35,058 in October.

Earlier this week, Governor Jack Markell, who recently returned from an economic trip to Asia, said, “We’re going to do whatever we have to do to create jobs in Delaware.”  On Tuesday, the Governor celebrated with Perdue AgriBusiness after the subsidiary of the poultry giant announced plans to move its headquarters to Seaford, an area of Sussex County that’s been hit especially hard by high unemployment.  “They already have a couple thousand employees in Delaware, but these are new jobs, different kinds of jobs to Delaware, and we’re excited about that.”

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Regional unemployment numbers which are not seasonally adjusted show a nearly half of a percentage point drop in Wilmington’s unemployment rate from 12.4% to 12%.  New Castle County’s unemployment rate is at 8.2%, down from 8.3% in September.  Kent County’s unemployment rate went the other direction, up to 8.3% from 8.2% in September.  Sussex County’s unemployment rate is up as well, but still the lowest of the three, 8.0% in October compared to 7.7% in September.

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