Kansas Jobless Rate Steady at 3.7%

Despite a slight decrease in the total number of non-farm workers, the jobless rate in Kansas held steady at 3.7 percent in June, the third consecutive month at that rate, state officials say.

In a news release this morning, the Kansas Department of Labor said its statistics, and others from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, showed a jobless rate unchanged since March, and well down from the 4.2 percent rate of June 2016.

“The June report shows that private sector job gains in goods-producing industries were offset by seasonally adjusted losses in service-providing industries,” said Kansas labor economist Emilie Doerksen. “However, other measures of labor demand have improved since June 2016 for service-providing industries, with average weekly hours worked increasing by 0.9 percent and average hourly earnings increasing 3.1 percent.”

The Labor Department said seasonally adjusted job estimates showed a decrease of 3,500 non-farm jobs from May, nearly all of that in private-sector employment. Since June 2016, Kansas has lost 4,000 seasonally adjusted total nonfarm jobs.