Unemployment fell across Northwest Indiana in October according to the Indiana Department of Workforce Development. In Lake County, the jobless rate fell to 5% in the Gary metropolitan area, which encompasses Lake, Porter, Newton and Jasper counties. This marked a decrease from 5.6% in September but was still higher than the 4.1% rate in October 2023.

Lake County had the Hoosier State’s fourth highest jobless rate at 5.4%, down from 6.1% the previous month. Similarly, in the manufacturing-heavy Howard County, unemployment reached 8.7%. In LaPorte County, which ranked sixth highest of Indiana’s 92 counties, the unemployment decreased to 4.6% in October from 5.2% in September. Porter County’s unemployment rate also fell to 4.1% in October, from 4.5% in September.

At a national level in October, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported an unemployment rate of 4.1%, the same as in September.

Locally in Northwest Indiana, joblessness fell in multiple communities. It fell as much as 1.7 percentage points in Gary, 0.8 percentage points in Hammond and 0.6 percentage points in East Chicago. In the Calumet Region, Gary has the highest unemployment rate at 8.3%. Meanwhile, Valparaiso has the lowest unemployment rate of 4% in Northwest Indiana.

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