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Arkansas Unemployment Falls To Lowest Level Since 2008

Arkansas’s unemployment rate dropped to its lowest point in nearly six years sitting at six percent in October, according to a report released Friday by the Department of Workforce Services. At this point last year the unemployment rate was 7.6 percent.

Michael Pakko, an economist with the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, said the latest report is another encouraging sign of growth.

“A six percent unemployment rate is definitely good news. The last time we saw an unemployment rate this low it was July of 2008. It was the early months of the recession before things really got out of hand so we’re definitely making progress,” said Pakko.

Pakko, the Chief Economist and State Economic Forecaster at UALR’s Institute for Economic Advancement, said unlike some other recent labor reports October’s did not show a rise in the number of discouraged workers dropping out of the labor force.

“A falling unemployment rate is not always an unambiguously good thing. For several months this year we saw the unemployment rate going down yet the number of people in the labor force was dropping dramatically which suggested that discouraged workers were simply giving up on even bothering to try to find a job. But this month’s report looks a lot more positive. For the second month in a row we saw the number of employed Arkansas’s increase, we’ve seen labor force participation go up, and the number of unemployed Arkansan’s has fallen,” said Pakko.

The education and health sectors continued to show growth while the typically lagging manufacturing sector posted one of its better months.

Jacob Kauffman is a former news anchor and reporter for KUAR.
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