Unemployment rates fell in about two-thirds of Kentucky counties from April of 2024 to last month. That’s according to the state Education and Labor Cabinet’s Kentucky Center for Statistics. Jobless figures remain highest in eastern Kentucky. Mike Clark is the director of the Center of Business and Economic Research at the University of Kentucky.
“With eastern Kentucky, we have a more rural area that doesn't have a lot of the infrastructure, a lot of the population that you tend to have in the urban areas. So certainly, it's easier to start a business in the urban areas than it is. Maybe in some of these more rural areas.”
Martin County had the state’s highest unemployment rate at 9.3 percent, followed by Magoffin, Lewis, Elliott and Wolfe counties.
The state’s seasonally adjusted jobless rate was the same this April as last – 5.2 percent, Clark said more people are working, but some counties and regions are faring much better than others.
“But when we start looking at the county level, what we start to see is that some of those changes really haven't been evenly distributed across the different counties. Where we're seeing those increases in number of people who are working tends to be in some of our more populous urban areas.”
April’s jobless numbers were lowest in Woodford County at 3.1 percent, followed by Fayette and Scott counties at 3.3 percent.
