State’s economy adds 1,600 jobs in April

Connecticut’s economy added 1,600 jobs in April, state Department of Labor officials said Thursday, as the state’s unemployment rate fell to 4.4 percent.

The 0.2 percent decline brings the state’s unemployment rate to its lowest point since the pandemic hit in March 2020. Connecticut’s unemployment rate at that time was 3.4 percent.

Thursday’s employment news for Connecticut wasn’t all positive. The number of jobs that were added in March was revised from the previously reported 4,600 to 3,700, department officials said.

Dante Bartolomeo, the labor department commissioner, said the latest economic data “shows all the market indicators continue to move in the right direction – jobs are being added, unemployment is dropping, and fewer people are filing for unemployment benefits.” Weekly unemployment filings in the state hit historic lows with 16,800 peopld filing for benefits, Bartolomeo said.

“For job seekers, the time to take advantage of this labor market is now —there are 100,000 active job openings in Connecticut across all industries,” she said.

Patrick Flaherty, the state Labor Department’s director of research, said Connecticut employers are still seeing a high employee turnover rate as people are leaving their jobs to take better jobs.

“(It’s) good for the labor market, but tough on employers,” Flaherty said.

The largest April employment gains came in the leisure and hospitality sectors - which covers restaurants, hotels, arts, entertainment, and recreation businesses —as well as manufacturing. There were 3,000 leisure and hospitality jobs added last month while manufacturing companies added 1,000 to their payrolls.

The trade, transportation and utilities sector lost

1,200 jobs in April while there were 1,000 fewer workers in the information sector last month.

An executive with Connecticut’s largest business organization said the state’s economic recovery is moving at a slow pace.

Eric Gjede, vice president of public policy at the Connecticut Business & Industry Association said the state’s year-to-date job growth is 0.7 percent which is “half the national rate and the slowest of the New England region.”

“The slow, uncertain pace of our recovery must be addressed by candidates for governor and the General Assembly on the campaign trail this year with meaningful policy solutions.” Gjede said. “At this rate, we will not recover all jobs lost to pandemic shutdowns and restrictions for at least another 18 months and that’s assuming that fears of a recession are not realized. Our recovery remains a fragile one.”

Fred Carstensen, a professor of finance and economics at the University of Connecticut, said the report from the labor department is misleading because it doesn’t address the full extent of how many jobs have been lost.

“In March 2008, we had 73,208 more jobs than we do now,” Carstensen said. “They don’t remind people of how far we have left to go. Since 2008, we’ve lost a lot of quality jobs and gained a lot of lower quality jobs.”

To illustrate his point, Carstensen noted that the biggest April employment gains came in the leisure and hospitality sector.

“A lot of those jobs are either low paying or seasonal positions,” he said. “The fact that we gained 1,000 manufacturing jobs is encouraging because a lot of those positions pay well and are full time.”

Carstensen said what is distressing about the state’s economic situation that political leaders aren’t addressing how to fix the problems.

“There’s not much here to suggest how we’re going to change the current trajectory,” he said.