Northeast Indiana unemployment improves, but not everyone is returning to work

For the first time since the statewide shutdown in April, all counties in Northeast Indiana have seen unemployment drop to below five percent, which is considered full employment, but the rebounding job market isn't an even distribution.

The unemployment rate throughout northeast indiana is improving the further along we go into the pandemic, but it's not all good news fox 55 caleb saylor has more on what the trends look like and how the pandemic continues to impact the job market.

3 for the first time since the statewide shutdown in april, all counties in northeast indiana have seen unemployment drop to below five percent.

But rachel blakeman with the community research institute says a reboundi g workforce isn having the same effect for everyonehose who are struggling, there are lots of folks struggling.

For those who are doing well and their lives have largely returned, that is not a universal experience in this economy.

One of those people is monte hand was a e says he his life, but now at 62 years old, work is becoming harder struggling to find time to find a job in this because of the pandemic going on.

Employment is getting a little blakeman says for people like handschy, there are jobs there, which is a good sign nyone who wants a job can find a job, but whether it the exact job you want, ther a lot of other things, but you can be employed.

It comes with a disclaimer hat news is tempered by fact there are fewer people working or looking for work than there was a year ago.

This could be due to retirees deciding to stop working earlier than planned or people who e lost their job de not to go back to the same job and wait to find something better, but part of this shrinking workforce is because of schools have been going on and off, in terms of online learning, all semester, i mean since august, and so there may be parents who decided, based on what their own job situations were of sitting out from the workforce.

Means that the demand for food bank and other assistance programs might continue to grow while some people get their jobs back, but people like handschy might not get their top choice job as covi second wave impacts the area guess kind of at this point, you know, beggars can be choosers, so i gues i would be open to other things.

Saylor.

Fox 55 news blakeman says while we won't know what the november unemployment numbers will look like until around christmas, they're likely to be shaped by people's habits during