Employment numbers fall slightly

The city of Maricopa experienced a one percent drop in its unemployment rate from October to November, according to numbers released by the Arizona Department of Commerce.

Each month, the state looks at each city’s workforce size and compares the number of those who have collected or applied for unemployment benefits to determine the city’s unemployment percentage.

From October to November the city saw the number of employed climb from 16,644 to 16,746 and those collecting unemployment decrease from 2,609 to 2,420, a drop of 7 percent. The total size of the workforce also decreased from 19,253 to 19,166.

These factors led to Maricopa’s unemployment rate dropping from 13.6 to 12.6 percent. The drop in unemployment follows two consecutive months in which Maricopa had seen growth in its unemployment numbers and is the largest drop this year for the city. The city’s average unemployment rate is 12.3 percent for the year.

Maricopa was not alone in its drop in unemployment. Pinal County, as a whole, decreased from 12.2 percent to 11.4 percent, and the entire state saw its month-to-month number decrease from 9.3 to 8.7 percent.

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