The new unemployment numbers have been released from the Kansas Department of Labor and they show the unemployment rate for Hutchinson at 6.8%, with one thousand, 384 residents of the city looking for work. That compares with a rate of 7.1% in July and 6.7% in August of last year.
In the county, the rate also dropped slightly from 5.8% in July to 5.6% in August. The rate was at 5.5% in August of last year. One thousand, 863 county residents were looking for work last month, but as always, most of those were in the city of Hutchinson.
Surrounding county rates varied with Harvey Counties rate going up to 5.9 in August compared with 5.7% in July. Kingman County’s rate dropped to 5.1% in August from 5.3% in July. McPherson County saw there rate also drop slightly to 4.3%, compared with 4.5% in July.
Pratt County saw a slight drop with their rate now at 4.5%. Rice County also saw a slight drop with their rate now at 4.7%. Stafford County’s rate is 5.3% for August, no change from July and Sedgwick County’s rate is at 6.9%, down from 7.3% in July.
The Department of Labor reported that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for the state was 5.9 percent, unchanged from July and up from 5.8 percent in August 2012.