Unemployment rate remains down in county

New unemployment numbers for December have been released by the research and planning section of the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services, showing an unemployment rate of 4.8 percent compared to the national rate of 4.5 percent.

Wyoming has a total labor force of just over 303,000 people. In December 14,674 of those folks were out of work.

In Hot Springs County our unemployment rate is 4.3 percent, just below the national average.

With a workforce of 2,458 in the county, 105 people were unemployed in December, putting us at the lower end of the state average.

The county with the largest unemployment rate remains Natrona County with over 2,700 still looking for work since the oil bust. That puts their unemployment rate at 6.6 percent.

On the other end of the scale, Niobrara and Albany Counties are tied for the lowest unemployment rate at just 2.8 percent.

Niobrara County (Lusk) records just 36 people looking for work while Albany County (Laramie) has 634 folks out of work.