Lincoln County’s unemployment rate for October was 4.3 percent, its lowest percentage since November 1999 — the last time the county sat at 4.3. Lincoln was tied at 23rd for counties with lowest unemployment, along with Choctaw, Covington and Hinds. The highest rate was 10.3 percent in Jefferson County. The lowest was a three-way tie between Lamar, Rankin and Union counties, at 3.3 percent.

The highest rates of unemployment for Lincoln County since 1999 came in the back-to-back months of December 2009 and January 2010 — 11.6 and 11.7 percent, respectively. The annual average has decreased in that period, as well, dropping from 10.5 in 2010 to 5.7 in 2016, and on track to average 5.3 percent this year.

In real numbers, approximately 610 people who call Lincoln County home were able, available and looking for work in the month of October, without success. An estimated 13,660 Lincoln Countians were employed, however.

Statewide, 4.9 percent of the workforce was unemployed. October and May of this year are the only times the unemployment rate has been below 5.0 since the current method of calculating state seasonally-adjusted unemployment rates started in January 1976. The national unemployment rate of 4.1 percent dropped slightly from 4.2 the previous month and significantly from 4.8 in October 2016.

At an employment rate of approximately 1,153,600 statewide, more than 2,100 new jobs exist in Mississippi over one year ago, and more than 6,500 new jobs since two years ago. The last time Mississippi had more jobs was May 2008.

Seasonally-adjusted data removes the effects of events that follow a more or less regular pattern each year such as the influences of weather, holidays, the opening and closing of schools, and other recurring seasonal events. These adjustments make it easier to observe the cyclical and other non-seasonal movements in a data series. Amounts are seasonally adjusted at the national and state levels only.