Knox and surrounding counties continue to see much improve unemployment rates over last year.
Knox County had a reported rate of 4.8 percent unemployment for December which is 1.5 points lower than the same time last year. The county did lose about 460 from the labor force, or almost exactly 2 percent of the county’s labor force from last year.
That makes the ninth straight month with unemployment at or below five percent dating back to May.
December 2016 showed identical unemployment for Galesburg the county at 4.8 percent. This would make the ninth straight month for the county and fourth straight month for Galesburg with unemployment below five percent.
Just two years ago Galesburg’s unemployment was 6.9 percent.
As the national economy improves so are the economies of area Illinois counties as Warren, Fulton, McDonough, Henry and Henderson all saw at least a percentage point improvement over last year.
Warren County remains the neighboring county with the best unemployment rate at 3.9 percent, but lost about 2.6 percent of their workforce over the last year.
For the second straight December, Washington county has the lowest unemployment of any county in the state, last month at 2.6 percent.
Alexander County has the worst rate at 7.9 percent, taking that distinction away from Hardin County who saw an improvement of 2.5 points.
