July State Unemployment Numbers

Indiana's unemployment rate is below the nation's right now according to the numbers released Friday.

Petroviak.thanks for joining us.indiana's unemployment rate is below the nation's right now according to the numbers released today.that means there's a lot more people working now during the pandemic than before in the earlier stages of the shutdown..last month's rate dropped to seven point eight percent.

Fox 55's jentill neal tells us why that is and why it could look different for this month.

Jentill?

Hunter, employment experts say the 4.5 stage of the re-opening plan is a huge contributing factor.

Back in april when we were in the beginning of the pandemic, businesses were temporarily closing or closing for good..

Some of those businesses are making a comeback providing more opportunities.

Employment experts were highly anticipating july's numbers with the high unemployment rate a few months ago.>11:48:00-11:48:11 "we are at 7.8% for the state as of july.

In june we were in at 11.1 % so we can feel good about it going down."the indiana department of workforce development released numbers today showing more than 42 thousand people returning to work.blakeman says the re-opening of the state is helping a lot.

11:50:04-11:50:11"we're going to see more people returning to the workforce perhaps out of financial necessity, but hopefully because of a stronger economy."

The department says the total labor force including employed hoosiers and those seeking employment stands at 3.31 million.data shows the state's 62.8% labor force participation is above the national rate of 61.4 percent.

Blakeman says while this is good, there are still some things to consider before looking ahead to august.

11:50:14-11:50:38"what we'll be watching more closely going forward is do we see people leaving the workforce all together.

That's something we will want to watch because of kids going back to school, especially a two parent household, it may be a situation where one of the parents decides to stay home in light of online school."

Local numbers for each county will be released monday for july's unemployment.august's numbers have not been released yet.reporting live in fort wayne jentill... fox 55 news.