It’s hard to find employees in northeast Indiana.
According to data released Wednesday by the Indiana Department of Workforce Development, northeast Indiana, or Region 3, is seeing unemployment rates at or below the state’s rate of 1.3 percent.
And six counties in the area are below one percent, according to the data.
During the same period in 2020, the rate of unemployment was at 4.3 percent.
LaGrange County is the lowest, with a rate of 0.7 percent, and Allen County is the highest, at 1.3 percent.
Economists consider any unemployment rate below five percent to be full employment, and these kinds of numbers have not been seen in decades, if ever, according to the statement from Northeast Indiana Works.
According to Rachel Blakeman, director of the Purdue University Fort Wayne Community Research Institute, such a low unemployment rate was not even seen during the dot-com boom of the 1990s.
Compared to unemployment numbers in December 2020, the number of workers actively seeking employment has plummeted by 72 percent, according to the release.
In a written statement Rick Farrant {Fair-ant}, the director of communications at Northeast Indiana Works said that now would be an “advantageous” time for employers to turn to underutilized populations.
