Unemployment rate drops slightly in Maricopa

The city of Maricopa experienced a five-tenths percentage drop in its unemployment rate from July to August, 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.

The primary factors that played a role in Maricopa’s decrease from an unemployment rate of 13.8 percent to 13.3 percent were a decrease in the workforce size from 19,344 to 19,307 and eight less people collecting or filing for benefits as compared to last month.

The last time the city saw a decrease in its unemployment rate was April of this year and the last time the city saw its workforce shrink was November 2008.

The average unemployment rate is 12 percent for the year.

Maricopa was not alone in the drop in unemployment. The county, as a whole, fell from 9.5 percent to 9.1 percent and the entire state saw its month-to-month number drop from 9.5 to 9.3 percent.