Kentucky’s annual unemployment rate for 2018 is the lowest since the year 2000.
The Kentucky Center for Statistics says the rate dropped from 4.9% in 2017 to 4.3% in 2018. The agency said the jobless rate in 2000 was 4.2%.
The Commonwealth still trails behind the 2018 national unemployment rate of 3.9%.
Kentucky’s rate was lower than Ohio and West Virginia and higher than Indiana, Missouri, Virginia and Tennessee. Kentucky had the same rate as Illinois.
The number of unemployed Kentuckians was more than 89,000 in 2018. There were nearly 41,000 fewer individuals unemployed in 2018 than during the 2008 recession.