Kentucky’s annual unemployment rate for 2022 decreased to 3.9 percent from 4.4 percent in 2021, according to the Kentucky Center for Statistics, an agency of the Kentucky Education and Labor Cabinet. This is a drop from 10 years ago when the annual rate in 2012 was 8.2 percent and is the lowest seen since the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics began reporting state unemployment rates in 1976.
The U.S. annual unemployment rate fell to 3.6 percent in 2022 from 5.3 percent in 2021.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimate that the number of employed Kentuckians for 2022 was 1,968,121. This figure was up 30,584 from the 1,937,537 employed in 2021 and up 77,012 from the 1,891,109 employed in 2012.
The number of unemployed Kentuckians for 2022 was 79,945, down 9,683 from the 89,628 unemployed in 2021. There were 89,030 fewer individuals unemployed in 2022 than ten years ago.