County Holds to Low Jobless Rate

According to the latest information, DeSoto County remained one of the Mississippi counties with the lowest unemployment rates among the 82 counties in the Magnolia State. The Mississippi Department of Employment Services (DES) last week came out with its April jobless figure for the state of 4.9 percent unemployed for the month. Tuesday afternoon, the DES released its county-by-county numbers for each Mississippi county. DeSoto County is reported to have a 3.9 percent jobless rate during April, according to the DES report. That puts the county tied for fifth-lowest among counties, joining Lafayette, Lee, Pontotoc and Madison. Rankin County, at 3.4 percent, has the lowest unemployment figure in Mississippi. Lamar and Union (3.6) and Scott (3.8) are ahead of DeSoto and the other four counties to complete the top five rankings. Conversely, Jefferson County, in southwest Mississippi along the Mississippi River, is at the bottom with 10.9 percent of its workforce without a job. Adjoining counties to DeSoto, Tunica (4.9), Tate and Marshall (4.8), are all reporting a figure above 4.5 percent. The April report showed 3,440 people in the county’s labor force 88,480 were without work in April. The rate is the same as March, but it is four-tenths of a percent above the 3.5 percent total for April of 2018. In Mississippi, the 4.9 percent jobless figure means the state has been below five percent for 19 straight months, but was up one-tenth of a percent from the April figure last year.

Bob Bakken is Managing Editor for the DeSoto Times-Tribune.

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