It will be a long while before unemployment figures return to anything close to February’s rate in Indiana, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Indiana’s unemployment rate stood at 3.1 percent for February and remained lower than the national rate of 3.5 percent. The monthly unemployment rate is a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicator that reflects the number of unemployed people seeking employment within the prior four weeks as a percentage of the labor force.

Indiana’s labor force had a net increase of 3,114 over the previous month. This was a result of a decrease of 1,599 unemployed residents and an increase of 4,713 employed residents. Indiana’s total labor force, which includes both Hoosiers employed and those seeking employment, stands at 3.39 million, and the state’s 64.4 percent labor force participation rate remains above the national rate of 63.4 percent.