Local jobless rate jumps to 6.3%
The St. Louis unemployment rate jumped to 6.3 percent in January from 5.4 percent a year earlier, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced this morning. The area appears to be suffering both from shrinking employment and from discouraged-worker syndrome. The number of jobholders declined by 15,500 as the area’s work force shrank by 3,600 and the number of people identified as unemployed rose by 11,900.
This report, based on the Labor Department’s survey of households, makes the local economy look even weaker than the revised payroll survey that I wrote about last week.
Last time the St. Louis unemployment rate was this high was in July 2004, when it was 6.5 percent. But the rate isn’t seasonally adjusted, and to find a January rate this high one has to go all the way back to 1993, which began with a 6.6 percent jobless rate.
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David Nicklaus has covered St. Louis business for more than 25 years. His column appears three days a week on the Post-Dispatch business page. 
