City Of Detroit Sees The Lowest Unemployment Rate In 16 Years

Jobs are one of the most important issues when it comes to Detroit’s recovery, and it has been a topic up here at the Mackinac Policy Conference.

The city of Detroit in April had the lowest unemployment rate since May of 2001, according preliminary information shared by the Mayor’s office from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The graph above tracks the year over year unemployment rate in April.

The city’s rate of 8.4 percent is higher than the rest of Michigan at 4.7 percent, and the Detroit regional rate at 4 percent as we reported yesterday, but it’s significant progress.

The rate has dropped from 17.6 percent since Duggan took office at the beginning of 2014.

In January of 2010 during the Great Recession, city unemployment hit depression-era levels at 27 percent.