Region gains 100 jobs in March
Connecticut gained a disappointing 300 jobs in March, with a third of the gains coming from the Norwich-New London area, which suddenly is seeing more growth than the rest of the state.
New job numbers released Thursday by the state Department of Labor showed southeastern Connecticut gaining 100 jobs last month. What’s more impressive is the 4,000 jobs gained since March of last year, which makes the region the fastest-growing employment generator in the state on a percentage basis over the period.
Of course, Norwich-New London had a long way to go. While the state has gained back more than three quarters of jobs lost during the Great Recession, the region has now reclaimed less than 30 percent of its losses.
“We are still struggling to come to terms with a stubborn new economic reality,” said economist Pete Gioia, a vice president at the Connecticut Business & Industry Association, in a statement. “We are adding back low-wage jobs at a much higher rate than high-paying jobs.”
Statewide, the one notable statistic was a rise in Connecticut’s unemployment rate to 5.7 percent, up two-tenths of a point from February. Still, the number of unemployed residents has declined by more than 4,000 over the past year, pushing the labor force over 1.9 million for the first time since February 2015.
“The rise of unemployment occurred in a growing labor force, meaning it was driven by more people entering the labor market looking for work rather than a decrease in the number of employed,” said Andy Condon, director of the Labor Department’s Office of Research, in a statement. “Job growth is occurring, but not fast enough to employ all of those recently entering the market.”
Gioia, however, pointed out that the state's current jobless rate is the highest in New England. And most of the new jobs Connecticut has added in the past years are in lower-paying industries such as hospitality and transportation, he added.
"This only exacerbates the problems that Connecticut is facing, including fiscal instability with the state budget," said Gioia. "Nothing would be a stronger confidence builder, or be a better catalyst for strong economic growth than for the legislature to close the state budget gap without adding to the cost and burdens of creating and maintaining jobs."
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