INDIANAPOLIS, IN — Indiana’s unemployment rate for September 2021, which stood at 4.0% when released on October 22, has since been revised downward to 3.5% by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
BLS made the revision after discovering an immediate change needed to be made to the unemployment rate model that affected the East North Central Region, which includes Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin.
BLS said unemployment statistical models used to calculate labor force data have been greatly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Effective October 2021, BLS changed its approach to detecting and adjusting for outliers in monthly statewide data.
The distortions made to January-August 2021 statewide labor force estimates will be modified during the annual benchmarking process in February 2022.
The Indiana Department of Workforce Development on Friday released unemployment numbers for October. The state’s jobless rate stands at 3.3% for October, with the national rate at 4.6%.
The monthly unemployment rate is a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) indicator that reflects the number of unemployed people seeking employment within the prior four weeks as a percentage of the labor force.
