Macon County’s unemployment rate fell to 3.1 percent in September, its lowest reading of the year, according to preliminary estimates from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The rate was down from 4.2 percent in August and from 3.7 percent in September 2025. The bureau estimated 201 county residents were out of work and looking for jobs last month, out of a labor force of 6,395.
The number of employed residents grew, too. The bureau counted 6,194 Macon County residents with jobs in September, up 163 from a year earlier. It was the first time since 2018 that the county’s September job count topped the year before. The September count had slipped every year from 2019 through 2025, falling from 6,610 in 2018 to 6,031 last year.
The labor force, which counts residents who are working or looking for work, grew by 135 people over the year, to 6,395 from 6,260. It remains well below where it stood nearly two decades ago. In September 2007, Macon County had 7,964 people in its labor force and 7,594 employed.
The county’s rate sat below both the state and the nation in September. Missouri’s rate was 3.3 percent and the U.S. rate was 4.0 percent, using figures that, like the county numbers, are not adjusted for seasonal swings.
Among Macon County and its seven bordering counties, Shelby County had the lowest rate in September and Adair County had the highest.
Shelby County was at 2.3 percent, down from 2.9 percent a year earlier. Chariton County was at 3.0 percent, down from 3.1 percent, and Linn County was at 3.0 percent, down from 3.7 percent. Randolph County was at 3.2 percent, down from 3.3 percent; Monroe County at 3.3 percent, down from 3.5 percent; Knox County at 3.4 percent, down from 3.5 percent; and Adair County at 3.6 percent, down from 3.7 percent.
All eight counties posted lower rates than in August, and all eight were lower than in September 2025. Because the county figures are not seasonally adjusted, part of any month-to-month change reflects regular seasonal patterns. Comparing one September with another sets most of those patterns aside.
Macon County’s rate has moved around this year. It started 2026 at 5.5 percent in January, fell to 3.5 percent by April, and climbed back to 4.4 percent in July before dropping in August and September.
The September rate is still higher than the county’s lowest September readings in recent years. The bureau’s figures put it at 2.0 percent in September 2022 and 2.5 percent in September 2018. The highest September rate since 2007 was 8.2 percent, in 2010, after the Great Recession.
The bureau’s county estimates count people where they live, not where they work. The Macon Chronicle reported Oct. 19 that about one in three working Macon County residents has a job outside the county, and Census Bureau commuting data show that Randolph County draws more Macon County commuters than any other county. That means the county’s employment figures reflect job conditions in Moberly, Kirksville, and other nearby towns as well as in Macon County.
The September figures are preliminary, and the bureau revises county estimates each year.