There was an average of 14,650 unemployed people in the Wichita metropolitan area in the first quarter of 2016, approximately 46 percent of whom collected unemployment insurance benefits. In the first quarter of 2016, there were approximately 6,735 people, age 16 and over, who collected unemployment insurance benefits. That is a decrease of approximately 18 percent from the fourth quarter of 2015.
In the first quarter of 2016, three industries accounted for 55 percent of unemployment insurance beneficiaries in the Wichita area; manufacturing, construction, and administrative and support and waste management and remediation services. These three industries also have a proportionately high level of unemployment insurance, when compared to area employment. Across all subsectors of manufacturing, there is a significantly lower level of educational attainment in beneficiaries of unemployment insurance than in the general labor force. Sixty-three percent of these unemployment insurance beneficiaries have no more education than a high school diploma.
Read the full Wichita unemployment insurance beneficiaries report.