During the month of March all area counties saw their unemployment rates improve. This was also reflected at the state level, where Illinois’ jobless figure improved from 7% to 6.8%. Locally, Effingham County had an unemployment rate of 5.8%. This was an improvement from February’s 6.3%. While the jobless rate improved from last month, things are still a bit behind where they were a year ago. In March of 2015 the unemployment rate was 5.1%.
Looking at the rest of the area:
Clay County’s unemployment improved from 9% in February to 8.2% in March;
Coles County improved from 7.2% to 6.8%;
Fayette County improved from 8.4% to 7.7%;
Cumberland County improved from 7.2% to 6.3%;
Jasper County improved from 7.8% to 7%;
Marion County improved from 7.8% to 7.4%;
Shelby County improved from 7.9% to 7.3%;
Richland County improved from 7.6% to 7.5%.