Unemployment claims were higher in Elkhart County the week ending April 4 than in any other county in Indiana except Marion County as businesses from factories to restaurants furloughed workers in a bid to stem the coronavirus outbreak.
This story by Rasmus Jorgensen originally appeared in The Elkhart Truth.
In Elkhart County, 7,487 residents made claims last week, topped only by Marion County’s 13,603 claims. The population in Marion County is about 950,000, compared to Elkhart County’s 205,000. In neighboring counties, St. Joseph County had 5,814 claims, while Marshall, Kosciusko, Noble and LaGrange counties all had between 1,000 and 1,600 claims, according to the Indiana Department of Workforce Development.
Data going back to January 2008 shows that last week’s unemployment claims in Elkhart County had been topped only once – one week earlier, when 9,844 county residents told the state they had lost their job. Two weeks before that, during the week of March 14, 50 county residents filed for unemployment.
The worst single week during the Great Recession was the week of Dec. 27, 2008, when 3,152 county residents claimed unemployment.
Elkhart County has a workforce of roughly 113,000, according to the Indiana Department of Workforce Development. With 18,000 of those losing their job over the last two months, and assuming that relatively few jobs were created, the unemployment rate in Elkhart County would have been above 15 percent as of April 4. In February, the unemployment rate was 2.7 percent.
Levon Johnson, CEO of the Greater Elkhart Chamber of Commerce, said the figures show that Elkhart County is one of Indiana’s main economic drivers.
