Indianapolis, In. — Indiana’s unemployment rate stands at 3.5 percent for September and remains lower than the national rate of 3.7 percent. With the exception of one month when it was equal (October 2014), Indiana’s unemployment rate now has been below the U.S. rate for nearly five years. 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.
Indiana’s labor force had a net increase of 4,564 over the previous month. This was a result of a 337 decrease in unemployed residents and an increase of 4,901 employed residents. Indiana’s total labor force, which includes both Hoosiers employed and those seeking employment, stands at 3.39 million, and the state’s 65.1 percent labor force participation rate remains above the national rate of 62.7 percent.
In addition, the number of Indiana’s ongoing regular unemployment insurance claims is the lowest since 1976, when UI claims were first recorded.
