The seemingly permanent escalation of Michigan’s unemployment rate halted in July, dropping from 15.2 percent to 15.0 percent.
It’s the first month-to-month drop in Michigan’s unemployment rate in 14 months. But state officials said the drop was attributable to seasonal hiring nuances, not a permanent shift in Michigan’s economic fortunes.
“Because of the large number of auto workers already on layoff in June, the July … auto plant shutdowns resulted in fewer worker layoffs than usual,” said Rick Waclawek, director of the Department of Energy Labor and Economic Growth’s Bureau of Labor Market Information and Strategic Initiatives, in a press release. “Therefore, the higher level of seasonally adjusted manufacturing jobs in July does not reflect any real improvement in the job picture, but is just an artifact of the seasonal adjustment process.”
University of Michigan economists have projected that the state’s unemployment rate would average 15.8 percent in 2010.
July’s national unemployment rate was 9.4 percent.
Unemployment data for Michigan's metropolitan labor markets, including the Ann Arbor region, will be released Aug. 27. Washtenaw County registered an unemployment rate of 10.6 percent in June.
You can e-mail AnnArbor.com's Nathan Bomey at nathanbomey@annarbor.com, call him at (734) 623-2587 or follow him on Twitter.
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