Lamont confident in state economy
Unemployment benefit rolls at lowest point for first week of any calendar year since 1988
As Gov. Ned Lamont expressed confidence Friday in Connecticut’s economic outlook with the COVID-19 pandemic approaching two years, the U.S. Department of Labor reported the state’s unemployment benefit rolls were at the lowest point for the first week of any calendar year since 1988.
Lamont provided the keynote address Friday morning at an economic summit hosted by the Connecticut Business & Industry Association. With COVID-19 infection rates still elevated, the CBIA held the event virtually.
Acknowledging the ongoing challenges of the pandemic, the governor gave an otherwise upbeat outlook for the state budget and economy as he gears up for a reelection bid, with potential rivals including Republican Bob Stefanowski, who Lamont defeated in 2018.
Lamont said he would attempt to find ways to reduce property taxes for residents in the Connecticut General Assembly session that starts in February. He did not offer any new proposals on how to get more people to reenter the workforce, but promised to continue to build on existing initiatives like job training and apprenticeships.
“A lot of it is confidence in getting people back to work — we were hit pretty hard,” Lamont said Friday. “We’ve got a lot of investment going on, starting with the transportation infrastructure, environmental infrastructure — I think that’s going to represent tens of thousands of jobs.”
Connecticut has seen a sharper drop in the “participation” rate of people actively considering work than many states nationally, according to Ezra Greenberg, a McKinsey & Co. partner who spoke Friday during the CBIA conference.
“People are reevaluating what their priorities are in terms of work,” Greenberg said Friday. “They have shown, with what they’ve been through in the pandemic, that there are other ways to get their families through.”
While federal assistance programs provided a cash cushion for some families that will dissipate in the coming year, Greenberg added, the pandemic crystallized for some workers a desire to leave existing careers for better opportunities.
After an earlier-than-usual spike after Christmas in initial claims for unemployment assistance, filings have tailed back off in Connecticut. Employers continue to dangle bonuses to boost their prospects of hiring people for jobs, particularly warehousing and freight companies struggling to fulfill orders.
Nearly 5,500 Connecticut workers filed initial claims for jobless assistance last week, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, about 2,400 fewer than the first week of January.
With 32,600 people filing for weekly benefits as of early January, Connecticut has about 15,000 fewer workers on unemployment than two years ago when the pandemic hit the United States.
Not since 1988 had the state started a year with unemployment rolls at an equivalent level. DOL recorded its lowest weekly tally for Connecticut the year before, when 13,459 people filed for benefits in mid-October 1987.
With many policymakers flummoxed on how to boost logistics industry employment to normalize the delivery of products to stores and businesses, companies continue to struggle filling jobs at higher pay scales.
Entering Friday, Indeed’s online job board posted more than 27,000 openings in Connecticut above $75,000 a year, near the state’s median household income as calculated by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Only about 4,000 Connecticut residents are receiving assistance after separations from jobs that paid at least $75,000 annually, according to a running count by the Connecticut Department of Labor.
While the unemployment assistance tally does not capture all people out of work in Connecticut — an unknown number of workers are taking hiatuses for varying reasons due to the pandemic or other factors — jobs boards also do not capture the full slate of opportunities.
On its careers page Friday morning, General Dynamics subsidiary Electric Boat listed nearly 1,000 openings as of Friday at its Groton shipyard and New London engineering office. That was several multiples more than the number captured by Indeed, due to Electric Boat’s practice of itemizing on its own website how many people it is seeking for each job description — in some instances, dozens for positions like machinists or pipe fitters.
Speaking Friday to CBIA’s audience, the president of Electric Boat Kevin Graney said the shipyard has 11 or 12 subs under varying stages of completion in Groton and an auxiliary yard in Rhode Island at any point. He said about a quarter of Electric Boat’s activities today are centered on the new Columbia class of ballistic missile submarines that will replace the U.S. Navy’s existing Ohio-class fleet.
Graney said 86 percent of Electric Boat’s workers have been vaccinated against COVID-19, adding the company avoided instituting a mandate on fears Electric Boat might have lost “a significant portion” of its workforce. Still, he said Electric Boat was hit hard by the omicron variant of COVID-19, both in the office suites as well as on the production lines.
“We are in the midst of a once-in-a-generation expansion — and frankly it may be the biggest in our history,” Graney said Friday. “Going forward, hiring is our biggest issue.”
CBIA CEO Chris DiPentima said Connecticut is “awash in money” and cautioned policymakers against tacking on additional expenses to the state budget, while calling for tax relief for individual earners and businesses.
“We must address workforce challenges that have simmered for years due to sluggish population growth,” DiPentima said. “If we don’t grow the population, we don’t grow the workforce.”