Lincoln County’s jobless rate for July was 6.1 percent, down from June’s 6.4 percent.

Those figures are from the latest data released Wednesday by the Mississippi Department of Employment Security.

The jobless rate is the percentage of the total labor force that is unemployed but actively seeking employment and is willing to work.

MDES calculates the unemployment rate by surveying how many people are seeking a job. This includes people who look for work sporadically or who work part-time because they cannot find a full-time job.

The county ranked the same as Lafayette and Prentiss counties, according to MDES. The state’s lowest jobless rate was Rankin County, at 4.1 percent. The highest was Jefferson County, at 18.5 percent.

Fifty-eight of the state’s 82 counties had a jobless rate equal to or greater than the state rate of 6.5 percent. Only six counties had a rate equal to or less than the national rate of 5.1 percent.

Lincoln County had 13,770 employed citizens in July, out of a labor force of 14,670. The 6.1 percent jobless rate translates to 900 people unemployed. In July 2015, the county had 13,840 people employed, from a labor force of 14,800. The jobless rate was 6.5 percent, or 960 people.

The number of unemployed Mississippians increased in July to 83,700.

The July 2016 number of unemployed Mississippians is 8,300 higher than a month earlier in June 2016 when the number was 75,400 but 6,100 lower than a year ago in July 2015 when the number was 89,800.

The number of people working in Mississippi increased in July by 400 to 1,206,300; however, for the year since July 2015, employment in our state posted an increase of 3,400.

The labor force increased in July by 10,500 to 1,290,000; however, over the year since July 2015, the labor force decreased by 2,700 as more Mississippians lost jobs.