State sees job numbers inch up
Connecticut added 1,100 jobs in August, posting its fourth straight month of rising employment, according to data released Thursday by the state Department of Labor.
Including a revised a total of 500 new jobs in July, the state has created about 13,000 positions in the past four months. Meanwhile, the monthly unemployment rate ticked down one-tenth of a point to 4.3 percent as the state’s long recovery from its 2008-2010 recession gained some momentum.
The jobless rate still stands higher than the national rate of 3.9 percent, but it is running lower than the state rate of 4.5 percent a year ago.
“These numbers are encouraging: They’re not great, but they’re not terrible, either,” said Pete Gioia, economic adviser to the Connecticut Business & Industry Association. “The year-overyear numbers are starting to look pretty positive.”
In August, private sector employment grew by 1,900, while government rolls dropped by 800.
During the past year, Connecticut has added 18,800 nonagricultural positions. Private sector employment is up 23,900 from a year ago, but the public sector has decreased by 5,100.
Don Klepper-Smith, economic adviser to Farmington Bank, described the August numbers as
“average,” in his latest report on the state’s economy.
“If we look at the detailed data, we see that the cumulative job gain of 105,400 jobs since the lows 102 months ago,” Klepper-Smith wrote. “That works out to about an average of about 1,000 new jobs each month. In this respect, we can say that Connecticut's labor markets are ‘treading water’ at this point with no discernible strength per se.”
Employment rose last month in six of the 10 major
industries tracked by the Labor Department, while the other four saw declines.
Education and health services led with 1,000 new jobs, followed by leisure and hospitality’s 700 additions. Professional and business services and construction both created 500 positions. Financial activities grew by 200, while “other services” added 100.
In addition to the government losses, the trade, transportation and utilities sector decreased by 900 jobs, while manufacturing and information both dropped 100 positions.
“On an annual basis, the
construction, manufacturing, education and health services and leisure and hospitality sectors are all showing good growth,” Andy Condon, director of the Labor Department’s Office of Research, said in a statement. “However, financial activities, a traditional employment foundation in Connecticut, continues to show some weakness.”
Among the state’s six regional labor markets, the Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk area added 900 positions. Danbury’s employment was unchanged. The New Haven market dropped
100 jobs. The Hartford area’s job rolls increased by 1,000.
“Lower Fairfield County is underperforming, but part of that is probably due to underperformance in financial services,” Gioia said. “That is a concern because those are generally high-paying jobs in finance.”
But southwestern Connecticut’s outlook has brightened recently. In the past six months, several companies, including IT consulting and research firm Gartner, professionalservices firms KPMG and PwC, reality-TV producer
ITV America and genomictesting company Sema4 have committed to cumulatively adding more than 1,500 jobs in the next few years in Stamford. Several million dollars in state subsidies will support those projects.
Connecticut has regained 88.5 percent of the approximately 119,000 jobs it lost in its last recession. The private sector has recovered about 113 percent of its lost positions.
The state’s recovery has taken much longer than the rebounds in several neighboring states. By early 2013, Massachusetts had re- bounded to its prerecession employment levels.
Klepper-Smith predicted in his report that Connecticut would not see a full job recovery until sometime in late 2019.
Meanwhile, wages saw an uptick. Average hourly earnings that were not seasonally adjusted last month totaled $31.53, up 71 cents from a year ago. The resulting average private sector weekly paycheck amounted to about $1,075, up $33.45 from a year ago.