265 Jobs Disappear from Lake County in June

Planting must be done: 265 jobs disappeared from Lake County in June. The latest South Dakota Department of Labor statistics say that the number of people working in our fair county decreased from 6425 in May to 6160 in June.

255 laborers also disappeared from our workforce, down from 6740 in May to 6485 in June. The number of officially unemployed people thus only increased by 10, from 315 to 325, for a June unemployment rate of 5.0%.

Now some economists will tell you 5% unemployment is actually full unemployment—after all, you're always going to have some people between jobs. But that's cold comfort for the LAIC's Forward Madison committee, which is now has to create 925 jobs by the end of next year to meet its "400 new jobs!" goal set in 2006. Uff da.

The news from the septa-county area is mixed. Brookings County remains the beacon of eocnomic hope with the lowest unemployment in the area, 4.1%. Still, that's an increase from May's 3.9%.

Miner County also saw an increase in unemployment, a full percentage point from 4.8% to 5.8%. But don't be fooled: Miner County actually added 25 jobs in June; they just had 15 more people than that jump into the labor pool.

Same situation in Moody County: they created 45 jobs, but had 140 new people come to town and say "I wanna work, too!" Moody's unemployment rate thus junped from 5.2 % in May to 7.4% in June.

Kingsbury, McCook, and Minnehaha all managed to post declines in unemployment, with jobs created growing faster than the increase in their county workforces.