State jobs up in April, but southeastern Connecticut loses 500
The state Department of Labor reported a modest April bump of 1,200 jobs Tuesday along with a new statewide record for labor-force participation, but the good news didn't filter into eastern Connecticut job numbers.
The Norwich-New London area lost 500 jobs between March and April, bringing local employment to a new post-recession low. The region has lost 1,700 jobs since April of last year, and continues to be the only area in the state that has shed jobs over that period.
Despite local woes, statewide job growth has been solid over the past year, with 23,200 positions added. And job seekers have continued to enter the market, with nearly 5,000 new participants in April helping the state to a new labor-pool high of more than 1.92 million.
"Continuing job growth combined with improving wages appears to be attracting more job seekers into the labor market," said Andy Condon, the Labor Department's research director, in a statement.
The unemployment rate ticked down a tenth of a point to 6.3 percent in April, according to the new report. The Norwich-New London area, which includes Westerly, had a slightly higher jobless rate of 6.4 percent.
Only four of 10 major job sectors statewide saw improvements in April, but only three reported declines.
"This was a relatively quiet month in the job market with mixed results across the state's major industry sectors," Condon said.
In fact, increases in government jobs, which include positions at the region's two casinos, were solely responsible for the April increase. Private-sector employment actually fell 300, while government added 1,500 positions.
But Peter Gioia, an economist for the Connecticut Business & Industry Association, noted that Connecticut's job growth is still much slower than in the rest of the nation. While Connecticut has regained 78 percent of the jobs lost during the most recent recession, the United States as a whole has regained 130 percent.
“The pace of recovery was a bit slower than what it has been averaging over the five years,” Gioia said in a statement. “While we’re still adding jobs in the state ... we still have a long way to go to get to full recovery and a pace of recovery that would have the average person feel as though we are doing really well.”
Twitter: @KingstonLeeHow
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