Mississippi’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for July was 9.7 percent. Pearl River County reflected an unemployment rate of 9.8 percent in July, which is almost a full point increase for the county from the previous month.

According to data released by the Mississippi Department of Employment Security on Aug. 26, Pearl River County’s unemployment rate increased by almost a full percentage point in July from that in June. That data states that the county’s unemployment rate in June was at 8.9 percent.

The state also reported an increase month over month. Mississippi’s seasonally adjusted series reported an increase of six-tenths of a percentage point from the rate reported in June, 9.1 percent.

Both the state and Pearl River County reflected increases in unemployment from year to year. Last year in July, the state had a rate of 7.3 percent. Pearl River County’s unemployment rate one year ago in July was 7.9 percent, the release states.

Mississippi was one of 26 states in which the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate increased from June to July. The nation’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate decreased slightly from 9.5 to 9.4 percent over the month but was still almost four percentage points higher than the year ago rate of 5.8 percent.

Seasonally adjusted data removes the effects of events that follow a more or less regular pattern each year such as the influences of weather, holidays, the opening and closing of schools and other recurring seasonal events. These adjustments make it easier to observe the cyclical and other nonseasonal movements in a data series. Amounts are seasonally adjusted at the national and state levels only.

Results from Mississippi’s nonfarm employment survey, which is counted by the location of establishments, reported a not seasonally adjusted decrease of 14,300 in employment over the month and a decrease of 19,100 from one year ago. Industry sectors registering the largest monthly employment losses were Government; and Trade, Transportation and Utilities.

For the month of July 2009, only 24 counties in Mississippi posted unemployment rates less than or equal to the state’s rate of 10.5 percent. Rankin County posted the lowest unemployment rate for the month of July at 6.5 percent followed by Lamar County at 7.7 percent. Sixty-one counties reported double-digit rates for the month with nine counties reporting rates greater than 15.0 percent.

Three counties posted unemployment rates greater than 20.0 percent with Jefferson County having the highest rate at 21.0 percent, according to the release.