In July 2026 the unemployment rate ran from 4.2% in Hampshire County to 6% in Hampden County. That order, the college-corridor county lowest and the big-city county highest, is not a fact about this month. It has held, with brief exceptions, through thirty-five years of monthly records.
The gap matters to housing because steady work is what carries a mortgage, and because the two ends of it sit forty minutes apart. A household priced out of the low-unemployment county and buying in the high-unemployment one is making a bet on that gap, usually without knowing the gap exists.
Hampden and Hampshire Counties, Annual Average Since 1990
Hampden CountyHampshire County
5%Hampden County's 2024 annual average. Hover to read any year.
Every recession is visible: the early-90s trough that sat under the region's deepest housing slide, the 2001 dip, 2009 to 2011, and the 2020 spike, when the annual average in Hampden County reached 11%. So is the recovery after each one, and so is the fact that the two lines almost never touch: the vertical gap between them has been a standing feature of the region, not an event.
All Four Counties
Unemployment by County: the Present Month and the Record Since 1990
Download CSV, same columns, same definitions
Each county's latest monthly unemployment rate from the BLS Local Area Unemployment Statistics, with the highest and lowest annual averages in the record since 1990. County figures are not seasonally adjusted; annual averages are used for all comparisons across time.
| County | July 2026 | Worst Year | Best Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berkshire | 4.5% | 10.9% in 1991 | 3% in 2000 |
| Franklin | 4.6% | 8.6% in 2020 | 2.5% in 2000 |
| Hampden | 6% | 11% in 2020 | 3.4% in 2000 |
| Hampshire | 4.2% | 7.8% in 2020 | 2.3% in 2000 |
What These Columns Mean
- County
- One of the four western counties. County figures are not seasonally adjusted, so annual averages carry the trend.
- July 2026
- The latest monthly rate, compared only against the same month in other counties.
- Worst Year
- The highest annual average in the record since 1990, and the year it happened.
- Best Year
- The lowest annual average in the record since 1990, and the year.
Cite: RE413. “Unemployment by County: the Present Month and the Record Since 1990.” Updated September 7, 2026. https://www.re413.com/news/unemployment-rate-western-mass/, underlying sources at https://www.re413.com/sources/.
What This Does Not Mean
A county rate is not a town's rate, and it is very much not a neighbourhood's. Hampden County's figure averages Springfield with its suburbs, and the spread inside the county is wider than the spread between counties. Where people in each town actually work and what the region's jobs pay carry the finer grain.
The monthly figures also move for seasonal reasons that have nothing to do with the economy: county data is unadjusted, winter rates always run above summer ones here, and a December-to-June comparison will always flatter. That is why every trend statement on this page uses annual averages, and why the one monthly figure quoted is compared only across counties in the same month.
Sources
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Local Area Unemployment Statistics. Monthly county unemployment rates, not seasonally adjusted, 1990 to July 2026.
"Figures through" is the period the publisher's data describes; "checked" is only when we last asked. The full sourcing: sources and method.