The federal government spends the start of each year doing a deeper dive on each state’s employment data. Based on that review, it adjusts past monthly results.
As a result of those adjustments, the state’s January unemployment rate of 3.3 percent is its lowest since the beginning of 2001.
But for the fifth consecutive month, Indiana’s labor force shrunk. The labor force measures people who have a job or are actively looking for one.
In January, there were both fewer people employed and thousands of unemployed Hoosiers who stopped looking for work. Declines in the labor force are sometimes viewed as a sign of pessimism in the job picture.