July Unemployment
Time for the monthly unemployment update. Good news in July as Lexington saw their unemployment drop from 8.5% to 8.2%. Our larger Bluegrass Alliance area saw its unemployment drop from an adjusted 9.3% to 9.2%. Unfortunately this is a bad combination for our surrounding counties. When Fayette County’s unemployment drops significantly and the larger area (which includes Lexington) doesn’t drop as swiftly, it means that the other counties are probably experiencing rising unemployment. As you can see from the graphic below, that is exactly the case.
The arrows point to the three counties (Bourbon, Scott, and Woodford) where unemployment rose instead of dropped in July. While the spikes (Woodford and Scott) can be scary, their number of unemployed really didn’t change by more than a few hundred, probably due to manufacturing closures that were announced earlier in the year actually taking affect. We’ll have to keep an eye on these counties and see if the unemployment has continued to grow or leveled off.
