Southeast Missouri jobless rates edge upward in May

After declining in almost every Missouri county in April, unemployment rates throughout the state began to tick upward in May, according to new data released last week by the Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations.

The new numbers coincided with the addition of seasonal workers to the state's labor force as well as an influx of high school and college graduates looking for employment.

After falling to 3.2% in April matching a pre-pandemic jobless rate in February 2020, Cape Girardeau County's unemployment rate increased a half-percentage point in May to 3.7%.

However, there were only 309 initial claims for unemployment benefits filed by county residents in May, the lowest number of first-time claims filed in the county in any month since early 2020. It's also a fraction of the 8,377 initial claims for unemployment benefits filed by Cape County residents in March, April and May 2020, the first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In Bollinger, Perry and Scott counties, the three counties adjoining Cape County, the May unemployment rates increased slightly compared to April's rates. In Bollinger County, the rate increased from 3.5% to 3.9%, Perry County's rate went from 2.9% to 3.2% last month, and in Scott County the jobless rate increased a half-percentage point, from 3.5% to 4.0%.

In other Southeast Missouri counties, the May jobless percentages compared to April's rates were:

• Butler — 4.6%, up from 4.3%.
• Dunklin — 6.0%, up from 5.4%.
• Iron — 5.5%, up from 4.8%.
• Madison — 4.3%, up from 4.0%.
• Mississippi — 4.6%, up from 4.1%.
• New Madrid — 4.6%, up from 4.1%.
• Pemiscot — 7.4%, up from 7.1%.
• Ripley — 5.3%, up from 4.8%.
• St. Francois — 4.7%, unchanged.
• Ste. Genevieve — 3.3%, up from 2.7%.
• Stoddard — 4.4%, up from 4.2%.
• Wayne — 5.1%, up from 4.4%.

Mercer County in Northwest Missouri, with a population of about 3,800, had the state's lowest unemployment rate in May, checking in at 2.4% and just five initial filings for jobless benefits last month.

At 9.9%, Ray County had the state's highest unemployment rate in May. Ray County, which has a population of about 25,000, is just to the northeast of the Kansas City metropolitan area.

Missouri's overall unemployment rate increased slightly last month, from 4.1% in April to 4.2% in May, according to the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center (MERIC).

The national unemployment rate decreased from 6.1% in April to 5.8% last month. The estimated number of unemployed Missourians was 128,770 in May, up by 1,824 from April's estimated total of 126,946 jobless adults in the Show Me State.

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