Joblessness rises in state as recent gains evaporate

Connecticut's jobless rate inched higher in March as the state's labor markets reported a loss of 6,000 jobs - wiping out the same number of jobs that were gained in the previous month.

The Connecticut jobless rate of 9.1 percent in March is a slight increase over February's rate of 9 percent, according to the state Department of Labor, which issues the monthly Labor Situation report on jobless figures and other economic data. The U.S. jobless rate in March stood at 8.8 percent.

"While the loss of jobs in March was a disappointment, this occurrence of monthly job losses and gains reinforces the importance of looking at trends in data over the course of several months," said Salvatore DiPillo, the state agency's labor statistics supervisor. "With this in mind, a number of other indicators do point to an improved Connecticut economy over the past year - fewer new claims for unemployment, fewer unemployed people and job growth overall, and a longer private sector workweek," said the labor statistics supervisor.

Locally, the New London and Norwich labor market reported a slight decline in the jobless rate, to 9.2 percent in March compared to 9.6 percent in February. In the Willimantic and Danielson labor market, the jobless rate in March fell to 10.2 percent compared to 10.7 percent in February. Those local jobless rates are not seasonally adjusted like the statewide jobless rate.

The state labor agency said job losses during March were reported in the professional-and-business, construction and the leisure-and-hospitality sectors. The government sector, however, added 600 jobs.

Don Klepper-Smith, chief economist and director of research for the New Haven-based DataCore Partners LLC, said "in effect, we have the same level of jobs we did back in January."

He said the good news is that year-over-year job gains are 21,100, up 1.3 percent. He said the March numbers were not in line with his expectations. The March job numbers for Connecticut, he added, "were a bit of a disappointment." But the state's economic recoveries are "rarely linear," said the economist, so it is not unusual for the state to move one step forward and a half step back.

a.cronin@theday.com