Jackson County’s unemployment rate stood at 1% in December, according to the Indiana Department of Workforce Development’s latest report released Monday.

That’s the lowest unemployment rate in the county since at least January 1990. The state’s online records are only available through January 1990. The county’s rate for December 2021 is preliminary.

Overall, 22,907 county residents were on the job in December of this past year, which is 368 more than in December 2020 when 22,539 county residents were working. The jobless rate at that time was 3.5% because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The number of county residents reporting they were looking for work in December of this past year was 236, compared to the 818 who were looking for work during the same month a year earlier.

The county’s labor force was 23,143 in December 2021, which is 214 less than the same month in 2020.

The county’s unemployment rate for December was lower than the state’s rate of 2.7% and the national rate of 3.7%.

Other nearby counties and their unemployment rates for December were Bartholomew, 1%; Brown, 1.2%; Jennings, 1.4%; Lawrence, 1.3%; Monroe, 1%; Scott, 1.5%; and Washington, 1.1%.

LaGrange County had the lowest rate in the state at 0.7% in December, and Lake County had the highest at 2.5%.