Monthly jobless rate drops in all counties over last year

Every Oklahoma county and the state’s largest metro areas showed improvement in October unemployment rates compared to last year.

However, 25 counties had a worse rate of unemployment in October than in September.

The jobless rate fell 0.8 of a percentage point in the Oklahoma City metro area and 0.9 of a percentage point in the Tulsa metro area since October 2017, hitting rates of 2.8 and 3.1 percent, respectively. Oklahoma City was unchanged from September, while Tulsa worsened 0.1 percent.

The Oklahoma Employment Security Commission released a report Thursday showing the October 2018 unemployment rates for all 77 Oklahoma counties ranged from 1.4 percent in Dewey County, up to 6.3 percent in Latimer County.

Unemployment rates were lower in October than a year earlier in all 77 counties. The statewide jobless rate for October was 3.4 percent, down from 3.5 percent in September.

Oklahoma County and Tulsa County each registered a rate of 3 percent in October, up from 2.9 percent in September.

The Oklahoma City metropolitan area had a labor force of 686,335 in October, with 667,140 employed and 19,195 unemployed during that time.

The Tulsa metropolitan area had a labor force of 488,186, with 473,214 employed and 14,972 unemployed.

Other state metropolitan area unemployment rates include Lawton, with an unemployment rate of 3.6 percent; Enid, with an unemployment rate of 2.7 percent; and the Oklahoma portion of the Fort Smith metro area, with an unemployment rate of 4 percent.

The state’s four regional nonmetropolitan areas had September jobless rates of 3.5 percent in the northeast, 2.4 percent in the northwest, 2.9 percent in the southwest and 3.3 percent in the southeast, the commission said.