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Unemployment in the First State went up last year while it dropped nationally

Delaware Public Media

Delaware began the year with an unemployment rate of 4.3%. That number rose to 4.6% in December, representing slight job loss overall for 2017. But the U.S unemployment rate dropped last year from 4.7% to 4.1%.

A recent survey counted 21,800 unemployed Delawareans.

Delaware Chief of Occupational Labor Market Information George Sharpley says since Delaware is a small state with few employers, job fluctuation is often inconsistent with the rest of the nation year to year.

“Up until a couple of years ago, the previous three or four years, Delaware’s employers—particularly bigger employers—were adding quite a few jobs, and the economy was actually doing better than the national average. But that has tailed off in the last couple of years,” said Sharpley.

But Sharpley projects modest growth of a couple thousand jobs in the year to come. He says, by in large, he suspects Delaware will follow the growth of the national economy.

“Nothing Dramatic. I’m expecting that we’ll be up maybe a couple thousand jobs in 2018,” said Sharpley.

Sharpley says unemployment has dropped in recent months because people in the state have stopped looking for work—not because of job growth.

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