There was an average of 12,760 unemployed people in the Wichita metropolitan area in the fourth quarter of 2015, approximately 64 percent of whom collected unemployment insurance benefits. In the fourth quarter of 2015 there were approximately 8,215 people, age 16 and over, who collected unemployment insurance benefits. That is an increase of approximately 33 percent from the third quarter of 2015.
Read the full report on the demographic profile of Wichita unemployment insurance beneficiaries.
In the fourth quarter of 2015, four industries accounted for 65.5 percent of unemployment insurance beneficiaries in the Wichita area; manufacturing, administrative and support and waste management and remediation services, wholesale trade, and construction. These four industries also have a proportionately high level of unemployment insurance, when compared to area employment. The increase in the number of unemployment insurance beneficiaries in this four industries can be mostly attributed to seasonal factors.
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.
