Unemployment Numbers Out For Natural State
By: Import User
Updated: January 7, 2009
State workforce officials say Arkansas`
unemployment rate rose two-tenths of a percentage point. The May jobless rate in Arkansas of five-point-eight percent was above the national rate of five-point-six percent -- but better than the six-point-two percent of May 2003.
Kimberly Friedman -- a spokeswoman for the Arkansas Workforce Investment Board -- said the increase stemmed mostly from a larger-than-normal number of people looking for summer work.
The number of Arkansans with jobs essentially remained the same, at one (m) million, 243-thousand, 400. The number of unemployed Arkansans rose by three-thousand to 76-thousand, 300 in May.
By metropolitan statistical areas, the unemployment rates were:
--Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, two-point-eight percent.
--Little Rock-North Little Rock, four-point-seven percent.
--Fort Smith, five percent.
--Jonesboro, five-point-two percent.
--Pine Bluff, nine percent.
The unemployment rate among minorities in Arkansas was
ten-point-nine percent last month, while the rate among white Arkansans was four-point-seven percent.
