ALPENA–While Michigan never returned to the low unemployment it enjoyed before the coronavirus pandemic struck, Northeast Michigan bounced back within six months, according to state data.

Across Alpena, Presque Isle, Montmorency, and Alcona counties, about 6.6% of workers were unemployed in February 2020, a month before the pandemic hit, according to a News analysis of data from the state Department of Technology, Management, & Budget.

By April that year, as state-mandated shutdowns meant to prevent the spread of the virus sent workers home, more than 5,000 Northeast Michiganders were without work, or about 22% of the workforce.

But our region was back to February 2020 unemployment by August of that year, and below it by September.

Statewide, meanwhile, Michiganders enjoyed a 3.8% unemployment rate in February 2020 but suffered through roughly 24% unemployment by that spring.

The state has yet to return to those pre-pandemic lows in unemployment, coming closest with a 4.6% unemployment in April 2021, more than a year after the pandemic began.

While Northeast Michigan’s unemployment has ebbed and flowed with waves of the pandemic, the region sat in October, the most recent month for which data is available, at about 5.5%, lower than before the pandemic hit.

Michigan’s unemployment rate that month was 4.7%.

Northeast Michigan’s labor force — a measurement of people working or actively looking for work — also stayed stronger than statewide.

From February 2020 to October 2021, Northeast Michigan lost a net 2% of its labor force, while Michigan as a whole lost 4%.

On an annualized basis, 2020 was the worst year for unemployment for both Northeast Michigan and the state since 2011.