State sees slight loss of jobs in July

HARTFORD » Connecticut lost 600 jobs in July though its unemployment rate remained unchanged at 5 percent, according to survey data released Thursday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

June’s originally released job gain of 7,000, or 0.4 percent, was revised downward by 1,400 to a 5,600, or 0.3 percent, employment gain in nonfarm employment. The BLS reports that Connecticut had about 1.692 million nonfarm jobs in July.

The number of the state’s unemployed residents fell by 513, while the number of residents employed grew by 776.

“July was a relatively quiet month in Connecticut’s labor markets with both payroll jobs and unemployment statistics changing very little,” said Andy Condon, Director of the Office of Research. “Over the year, payroll job growth in July was 11,600, well ahead of last year’s performance.”

While Condon used the term “quiet,” economic expert Don Klepper-Smith, an economist with DataCore Partners in New Haven, offered a different single-word description of the July report: “Mundane,” was Klepper-Smith’s analysis.

“It was nice to see solid back-to-back gains in monthly job numbers of May and June, but job growth will not be sustainable given present economic and fiscal fundamentals in my opinion,” Klepper-Smith said.

Private sector employment grew by 300 to 1,459,300 jobs over the month in July, according to the BLS survey, and by 14,700 jobs over the year. The government supersector continued its decline with 900 fewer jobs last month, down to 232,900, and it remains down over the year by a net of 3,100 jobs.

The government supersector, which includes all federal, state, and local employment, including public higher education and Native American casinos located on tribal land, remains the largest source of job losses in 2017.