A year and half after the unemployment rate in Ellis County reached a 30-year high, a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Saint Louis shows Ellis County’s job numbers are on the mend.
As of September 29, 2021, the Federal Reserve reports the Ellis County unemployment rate to be 4.2%, down more than six percentage points from the 30-year high of 10.5% in April 2020 when one in every ten county residents eligible to work was out of a job.
After the financial crisis of 2008, the number of unemployed county residents had been declining steadily since June of 2011 until it eventually bottomed out at 2.7% in December 2019.
Early in 2020, the rate began to climb again and spiked at the 30-year high in April. The rate fell back to around 5% to 6% by the end of summer and hovered there for several months. Then in February 2021, the rate once again began a downward trend.
For comparison, the unemployment rate for neighboring counties during the same reporting cycle is:
- Dallas County: 5.2%
- Johnson County: 4.5%
- Tarrant County: 4.9%
- Navarro County: 4.9%
- Johnson County: 4.5%
Ellis County has a total population of around 173,772 people, of which approximately 93,238 are employed at least part-time.
