Mississippi’s unemployment rate is the lowest since 2001 — 5 percent in March.
The Mississippi Department of Employment Security announced the new seasonally adjusted figures on Friday. The good news follows a similarly positive report last month.
The 5 percent rate, two-tenths of a percentage point lower than in February, marks the lowest level of unemployment in the state since January 2001.
“This is a testament to our skilled workforce and our commitment to creating an environment that encourages private investment,” Gov. Phil Bryant said in a Facebook post. “We will continue to work with our business partners all around the world to ensure that every Mississippian has not only a job, but a career.”
The labor force — all citizens who have a job or are looking for one — increased in March by 4,800 to 1,302,700. That amount is the largest since October 2012.
The report from the Mississippi Department of Employment Security also showed:
The number of people working rose in March by 7,100 to 1,237,000.
The number of unemployed Mississippians fell in March by 2,300 to 65,700.
A separate survey of employers showed that the number of non-farm jobs declined slightly in March by 100 to 1,146,100.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
- Look for the "Republish This Story" button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS).
- Editorial cartoons and photo essays are not included under the Creative Commons license and therefore do not have the "Republish This Story" button option. To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.
- You have to credit Mississippi Today. We prefer “Author Name, Mississippi Today” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Mississippi Today” and include our website, mississippitoday.org.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You cannot republish our editorial cartoons, photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Kayleigh Skinner for more information). To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.