(Unemployment goes way up)…The latest numbers are for April.

They are for the first month affected by the COVID 19 Pandemic. Non-essential businesses were closed, with several employees losing the jobs. The latest numbers were provided by the Labor Market Information Division of the Employment Development Department. According to the report, Imperial County unemployment in April was at 28 percent. That is up from the revised 20.8 percent jobless rate reported for March, and above the year ago estimate of 15.6 percent. This compares with an unadjusted unemployment rate of 16.1 percent for the state and 14.4 percent for the nation during the same period. In April there were 20,000 eligible workers unemployed out of a labor force of 71,500.