Kentucky’s unemployment rate last month had a significant drop from October, but remains above the pre-pandemic level of a year ago, according to the Kentucky Center for Statistics.
The preliminary November 2020 unemployment rate was 5.6 percent, down 1.7 percentage points from the previous month, but up 1.3 percentage points from the 4.3 percent recorded in November 2019.
The civilian labor force was 1,998,601 in November, an increase of 36,929 individuals from October. The number of people employed in November increased by 67,391 while the number unemployed fell by 30,462.
In a separate federal survey of businesses that excludes jobs in agriculture and people who are self-employed, Kentucky’s seasonally adjusted nonfarm employment increased by 1,000 jobs in November over the previous month but was down 100,600 jobs, or 5.2 percent compared to November 2019.
The sector seeing the largest loss was leisure and hospitality, which declined by 1,700 positions from October to November, a drop of 0.9 percent. This sector has lost 12,700 jobs or 6.3 percent over the past year. The accommodations and food services subsector cut 4,100 positions from payrolls from October to November while the arts, entertainment and recreation subsector added 2,400 positions.
Overall, Kentucky performed better than the nation as a whole. The U.S. seasonally adjusted jobless rate for November 2020 was 6.7 percent, down from 6.9 percent in October 2020, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
(In Grayson County, the jobless rate was 7.9 percent in October, up two percentage points from September, and up 3.5 percentage points over October 2019.)
By Tom Latek, Kentucky Today
