August Labor Data: Lake County Unemployment up to 5.1%

South Dakota Department of Labor data show unemployment in Lake County crept up a tick in August to 5.1%. We continued the pattern from July, adding a few jobs (10) but seeing a few more job-seekers (15) jump in the pool. Those new jobs bring the Lake Area Improvement Corporation within 895 jobs of reaching its Forward Madison goal of 400 new jobs by the end of next year. (Insert pessimistic snort here.)

Around the neighborhood, none of our neighboring counties showed gains in August. Brookings County managed to keep its unemployment rate steady (within the rounding margin) at 4.2%, adding 175 jobs and seeing 190 new faces in its labor force. The unemployment breakdown for the other counties adjoining Lake:

• Minnehaha: 4.5% (+0.1)
• Moody: 8.6% (+0.5)
  
• Kingsbury: 5.0% (+0.5)
  
• Miner: 5.1% (+0.2)
  
• McCook: 4.8% (+0.4)

September and October usually bring a surge in jobs with harvest kicking in (the other peak in our local labor market is March–May, planting season). September was awfully wet for work, so we'll have to wait and see whether we get that fall jobs boost.