Indiana’s unemployment rate held at 3.3% in August for a sixth consecutive month, while statewide payroll employment remained below its year-earlier level, presenting a labor market with low measured joblessness but uneven growth across industries.
The Indiana Department of Workforce Development’s August report put the state rate below the national 4.1% reading. Indiana’s labor-force participation rate was 63.0%, compared with 61.6% nationally, and the state labor force totaled 3,488,019 people.
Private-sector employment rose by 4,000 jobs from July to 2,843,800, according to the state release. Manufacturing recorded the largest monthly gain at 3,500 jobs. The broad “other services” category added 3,000 positions, leisure and hospitality gained 1,200, and professional and business services added 800.
The longer view is softer. Federal state data show Indiana had about 3.27 million nonfarm payroll jobs in August, down 0.5% from a year earlier. Construction employment was up 2.2% and education and health services rose 1.3%, while leisure and hospitality fell 4.3%, government declined 4.6%, and information employment dropped 6.8%. Manufacturing, one of Indiana’s largest sectors, was essentially unchanged from August 2025.
The stable unemployment rate and the payroll decline are not necessarily contradictory. They come from different federal surveys. The unemployment rate is built from a household survey that classifies residents as employed, unemployed or outside the labor force. The payroll count comes from a survey of employers and measures jobs located in the state. One person may hold more than one payroll job, and self-employed workers are treated differently across the two measures.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ national state release said payroll employment was essentially unchanged in 46 states during August. That broader context suggests Indiana’s month-to-month movement was part of a generally steady national picture, although the state’s year-over-year losses in leisure, government and information show clear sector-specific weakness.
Indiana’s August payroll mix also underscores the scale of the state’s production economy. Manufacturing accounted for 516,900 jobs, compared with 529,200 in education and health services and 300,200 in leisure and hospitality. Construction employed 181,300 people, making its year-over-year gain meaningful but too small by itself to offset declines elsewhere.
Other indicators point to continuing demand for workers. Indiana reported 102,895 open job postings as of Aug. 30 and 17,551 continued unemployment-insurance claims for the week ending Sept. 5. Those figures do not measure the same population or period as the unemployment rate, but they help show that hiring demand and worker displacement were both present.
The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis’ BLS series confirms the 3.3% rate has persisted since March. For Indiana policymakers and employers, the central signal is therefore not a sudden rise in unemployment. It is a split pattern: residents remain attached to the labor force at a comparatively high rate, while the number and mix of payroll jobs have not expanded evenly from a year ago.
