State reports modest jobs increase for July
Connecticut posted a net gain of 1,700 jobs in July, ticking the unemployment rate downward to 5.7 percent, the state Department of Labor reported Thursday.
Since July 2015, the state has added some 20,200 jobs, the department said.
“There is uniformly good news in our employment surveys last month,” Andy Condon, director of the department’s Office of Research, said. “Payroll jobs grew. Our labor force grew and we saw our unemployment rate decline for the first time since August of last year.”
However, a previously estimated gain of 7,900 jobs in June was adjusted down to 5,800. And overall, the state’s employment growth continues to trail that of other New England states and the country, the Connecticut Business and Industry Association noted.
Connecticut has now recovered 98,800 positions, 83 percent of the 119,100 jobs lost in the state during the March 2008-to-February-2010 employment recession.
Maine is the only other New England state that has yet to recover all its lost jobs, according to the CBIA. Massachusetts, which has added 122,800 jobs — nearly three times the number lost — since the recession ended.
“While it’s good news that we’re still adding jobs, our recovery’s lack of strength when compared to a neighboring state like Massachusetts is important,” Pete Gioia, a CBIA economist, said.
Characterizing Connecticut’s jobs numbers as “weak and lacking sufficient momentum,” Don Klepper-Smith, chief economist for DataCore Partners LLC, said in a newsletter that the state is unlikely to see full job recovery before the end of 2017.
By contrast, he said, the U.S. economy, which added 255,000 jobs in July, has now recovered 14.7 million jobs since February 2010, a “relatively healthy” job recovery rate of 169 percent.
In a statement, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy called attention to the 3,000 new private sector jobs added in Connecticut last month.
“This is another important step forward,” he said. “We continue each and every day to grow jobs and grow confidence among our business community. The needle is moving in the right direction, and we are no doubt going to keep working to build on our growth.”
The gain in private sector jobs was partially offset by the loss of an estimated 1,300 jobs in government, a sector that includes the casino jobs provided by tribal governments. Budget cuts have prompted hundreds of layoffs in state government in recent months.
Employment gains were calculated in three of the four Connecticut labor markets, while in the fourth, the Norwich-New London-Westerly market, the number of jobs was unchanged.
The state unemployment rate was 5.8 percent in June. A year ago, it was 5.4 percent. The national rate stands at 4.9 percent.
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