There was an average of 13,602 unemployed people in the Wichita metropolitan area in the fourth quarter of 2016, approximately 50 percent of whom collected unemployment insurance benefits. In the fourth quarter of 2016, there were approximately 6,811 people, age 16 and over, who collected unemployment insurance benefits. That is an increase of approximately five percent from the third quarter of 2016.
In the fourth quarter of 2016, four industries accounted for 64.2 percent of unemployment insurance beneficiaries in the Wichita area; construction, manufacturing, administrative and support and waste management and remediation services, and wholesale trade. Of these four high unemployment industries, only manufacturing currently has a proportionately low level of unemployment insurance beneficiaries, when compared to total employment.
Read the full Wichita unemployment insurance beneficiaries report.