More Coles County residents found work last month, but local unemployment rates are still slightly above the levels of previous years.

The county unemployment rate was 5.6 percent in August, according to the Illinois Department of Employment Security – a drop of .3 percent from the previous month.

However, the rate was .2 percent higher than in August 2001, when 5.4 percent of Coles County workers were jobless.

Cindy Titus, the executive director of the Charleston Chamber of Commerce, said the short-term drop in unemployment may indicate that county unemployment rates are stabilizing.

“I certainly hope (unemployment rates) would stabilize,” Titus said.

However, Titus said the Coles County economy is still feeling the aftershocks of Trailmobile’s decision last December to shut down its Charleston trailer manufacturing plant. The closing not only put 300 workers out of a job, but also made job security at other local businesses less stable, she said.

“Other businesses were tied to Trailmobile,” Titus said. “And we’re going to see a loss of jobs tied to that. That’s how some business have to cope.”

Titus said the county’s largest employers – Eastern, the public school system and Sarah Bush Lincoln Memorial Hospital – are in no danger of closing anytime soon, and form a stable base that the local economy can use to grow.

Also, an unemployment rate of 5.6 percent is “not too bad,” she said, noting that about four percent of the population in any area tends to be unemployable.

“Four, five, six percent – that’s not bad,” Titus said. “We’d start worrying if it hit double digits.

“It’s a change from a couple of years ago, but we were in a boom time then,” she said.

However, Titus said that the performance of the county economy is dependent on how the national and international economies are faring.

Recent fluctuations in the state and national unemployment rates do follow a pattern similar to Coles County’s rates.

The Illinois unemployment rate dropped in August from 6.7 percent the previous month to 6.2 percent, according to the IDES. However, the rate was still significantly higher than in August 2001, when 5.5 percent of Illinois workers were unemployed.

Nationally, the unemployment rate was 5.7 percent in August, compared to 5.9 percent in July and 4.9 percent in August, 2001, according to U.S. Department of Labor statistics.