Southeast Arkansas Economic Dev. Board Meets

Eddie Thomas

Mayors, County Judges and other board members meet Thursday, June 20th in Pine Bluff for the monthly meeting of the Southeast Arkansas Economic Development District.  The City of Warren and Bradley County are members of the organization and Mayor Pennington and Judge McKinney are board members.  The organization manages several programs and assists the cities and counties in acquiring state and federal grants.  the District operates the Workforce program and is the managing agent for the Southeast Arkansas Solid Waste Board.

During the meeting, Eddie Thomas of Warren made a presentation relating to the Workforce Program.  He announced that Bradley County is now a certified "ACT Ready Community."

The Board is presented unemployment information concerning the ten counties of the District at each monthly meeting.  The report is always for two months in the past.  The current report indicated that the unemployment rate as of April, 2019 for Bradley County is 3.7%.  It listed the county's civilian labor force at 4,512, and showed 168 persons as unemployed. The highest unemployment rate in Southeast Arkansas was Chicot County at 6.4%.  Ashley County was next at 4.8%.