The jobs picture is getting better in southwest Michigan. Kinexus vice president of public relations and government affairs Al Pscholka says the labor force is growing once again.
“The first few months of the pandemic we were okay,” he says. “Then we saw a huge drop off where we lost like 6,000 people. Now since starting in May, we started to see some of it come back. About 1,900 people are back in the labor force. That’s good.”
For Berrien, Cass, and Van Buren counties, the unemployment rate is 5.7%, down 11.9% over the past year.
“Where we are now from where we have been, we are starting to see baby steps of improvement of people coming back to work. Baby steps.”
Kinexus says more than 1,100 however, have not yet rejoined the workforce.
