Burlington County Unemployment Rate Drops

Burlington County, located in the state of New Jersey, saw its unemployment rate drop once again, this time for a third consecutive month. The drop brought the rate to the county’s lowest percentage in over a year per data released by the New Jersey Department of Labor.

The data was released on Monday and it shows the county’s unemployment rate for October at 8.4 percent. Even though it did not decrease by much, it was still a decrease, down from 8.5 percent in September. The rate was at 8.7 percent back in August. There is a total workforce of 242,100 people in Burlington County, with 20,400 of those residents currently unemployed.

October’s rate of 8.4 percent is the lowest in the county since December of 2010, when the unemployment rate was 8.1 percent. The three drop of the rate in three consecutive months is the first time this has happened since 2010 as well. In three of the county’s four largest towns, the unemployment rate dropped as well.

In Evesham, the unemployment rate fell from 7 percent to 6.8 percent; in Pemberton, the unemployment rate dropped from 11 percent to 10.9 percent; and in Willingboro, the unemployment rate dropped from 10.6 percent to 10.5 percent per data released by the Labor Department. The unemployment rate in Mount Laurel remained the same, sitting at 7.3 percent. These numbers do reflect rates that were not seasonably adjusted yet.

The jobless rate in October remained almost the same to the rate of October in 2010 but was lower than the 8.8 percent in October of 2009. The unemployment rate for October of 2011 was still much higher than that of October in 2008, which sat at 5.2 percent.

The state’s unadjusted unemployment rate decreased by one-tenth of a percent from 8.9 in September to 8.8 in October. The reason for the change is the fact that there are 4,000 fewer unemployed residents living in the state of New Jersey.

The adjusted rate for unemployment in the state also dropped one-tenth of a percent to 9.1 in the month of October, which marks three consecutive months that the state adjusted rate decreased. The rate for the state of New Jersey continues to float slightly above the 9 percent rate for the United States.

There are 21 counties in the state of New Jersey, with Burlington tying Monmouth as the 12^th highest with an 8.4 percent unemployment rate. The highest unemployment rate was recorded by Cumberland County, with 12.4 percent. Atlantic County followed with an unemployment rate of 10.9 percent and Hunterdon had the lowest unemployment rate of 6.3 percent.

The unemployment rates in Cape May, Monmouth, and Atlantic Counties increased while the rates remained the same in Ocean, Salem, and Cumberland Counties. In the 15 other counties of the state the rates decreased.

The industries of education and health, manufacturing and other services experienced job growth over the past month. In the industries of trade, transportation and utilities and professional and business services sectors there was smaller amounts of job growth.