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Unemployment was mostly up in the 11 counties of northeast Indiana in October, according to statistics the Indiana Department of Workforce Development released Friday.
The region is home to half of the 10 Indiana counties with the worst unemployment.
But the biggest jumps were in Huntington, Whitley, Allen and Wells counties, possibly reflecting a three-week shutdown at the General Motors Co. assembly plant in southwest Allen County.
Seasonally adjusted unemployment across Indiana’s 92 counties rose to 9.8 percent in October from 9.7 percent in September, a change considered statistically insignificant. U.S. unemployment rose to 10.2 percent from 9.8 percent over the same period.
Ohio unemployment rose to 10.5 percent in October from 10.1 percent in September. It won’t release county statistics until Tuesday.
In northeast Indiana, the biggest increase was in Huntington County, where non-seasonally adjusted unemployment jumped to 12.6 percent in October from 11.1 percent in September. Unemployment there was 6.9 percent in October 2008.
Mark Wickersham, executive director of the Huntington County United Economic Development Corp., said he couldn’t account for the increase.
"We haven’t seen any announcements of layoffs or anything," Wickersham said.
On the contrary, Canadian grill maker Onward Manufacturing Co. Ltd. announced in late October that it had refurbished an empty Huntington plant and would hire 300 workers over the next 15 months.
GM, on the other hand, idled 2,400 workers at its truck assembly plant for three weeks starting Oct. 5 in a shutdown to make improvements so the plant can expand its product line. Many of its suppliers in the region likely cut back as well.
The counties bordering southwest Allen County showed the greatest increases in unemployment.
Marc Lotter, a spokesman for the Department of WorkForce Development, wouldn’t comment on a specific business. But he said that if a major employer began a shutdown Oct. 5, it could be reflected in the newest unemployment figures.
Unemployment is usually tracked according to a worker’s county of residence, so a layoff at the GM plant would show up in surrounding counties’ unemployment rates, said John Stafford, director of the Community Research Institute at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.
Adams County showed the region’s greatest drop in unemployment. It fell to 12.5 percent in October from 13.3 percent in September.
The drop might be due to increased employment at Fleetwood RV in Decatur. After buying parts of the company out of bankruptcy, the plants’ new owners in August announced plans to add 300 to a workforce of 630 by mid-November.
At a forum Wednesday, Stafford predicted that regional unemployment for 2010 will run between 10 percent and 11.5 percent. But he stressed Friday that several factors could make those figures higher or lower.
"This was not your usual business-cycle recession," Stafford said.
