Unemployment rose from January to February in two local counties and fell in two others.
McKean and Potter each saw a slight increase; however, unemployment remains lower in those two counties than in Elk and Cameron counties, which both saw a decrease.
Potter County’s seasonally adjusted rate of unemployment rose from 7.3% in January to 7.5% in February. Potter County ranked 26th in the state in February, tied with Allegheny, Berks, Cambria, Dauphin, Delaware and Warren counties.
In McKean County, unemployment rose from 7.7% in January to 7.8% in February. McKean County ranked 40th, tied with Jefferson and Northumberland counties.
Elk County’s unemployment fell from 8.4% in January to 8.2% in February. Elk ranked 45th, tied with Clearfield, Crawford, Indiana, Schuylkill and Washington counties.
Cameron County’s unemployment saw the biggest change, dropping half a percentage point from 9.0% in January to 8.5% in February. Cameron ranked 53rd, tied with Armstrong, Greene, Lackawanna and Sullivan counties.
Tied in the No. 1 spot were Adams, Chester and Montour counties, which each had unemployment rates of 5.1% in February. In 67th place is Philadelphia County, with unemployment of 11.2%.
Unemployment remained higher in February 2021 than in February 2020, which was the month before COVID-19-related stay-at-home orders started in Pennsylvania.
These are the February 2020 seasonally adjusted unemployment rates in local counties: Cameron, 6.9%; Elk, 6.4%; McKean, 6.6%; and Potter, 7.2%. The rate in Pennsylvania at that time was 5.0%, and the rate in the United States was 3.5%.
The North Central workforce development area — Cameron, Clearfield, Elk, Jefferson, McKean and Potter counties — had a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 8.0% in February. This includes a workforce of 96,600 people, 88,800 who were employed and 7,800 who were not employed.
This is up from a rate of 7.7% in January in the North Central workforce development area.
On Friday, the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry released a statewide report for March, but county-by-county information was not yet available.
Statewide, the unemployment rate remained roughly 7.3% from January to February to March.
In Pennsylvania, unemployment went down to 7.3% in March, which is 2.2 percentage points above where the state was in March 2020. Meanwhile, the U.S. rate dropped to 6.0% in March. However, the Department of Labor & Industry said the statewide unemployment rate did fall one-tenth of a percentage point between February and March.
The U.S. rate fell two-tenths of a percentage point from 6.2% in February to 6.0% in March.
