State jobless claims return to normal
Initial claims for unemployment compensation in Connecticut ebbed back to historic norms the first full week of January, after an early spike the week after Christmas that countered trends in most other states.
Just over 7,800 Connecticut residents filed initial claims for jobless aid last week, about 1,500 fewer than the final week of December, according to a U.S. Department of Labor tally on Thursday. Last week’s number was in line with the Connecticut residents who filed initial claims for unemployment two years ago, before the onset of the COVID pandemic.
DOL recorded declines last week in just seven other states nationally, including Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Vermont.
The prior week, Connecticut registered the third-largest jump in new filings of any state nationally, after New York and Pennsylvania. That pushed the total number of Connecticut residents receiving federal aid to about 37,900, the data showed.
That is well below the 46,000 full-time Connecticut job openings — some of them work-from-home opportunities — posted on Indeed as of Thursday. Some 25,000 more openings are for part-time work or contractual and temporary jobs of limited duration.
“I’ve got to do everything I can to encourage people to get back to work,” Gov. Ned Lamont said Wednesday during an online conference call detailing enhancements for an earned income tax credit benefiting some 200,000 Connecticut households.
“The work has got to pay — we were falling behind and the middle class was getting slammed and working families were getting hit hard. A group we now refer to as essential workers were sometimes doing the most essential work at the lowest pay.”
However, more than 3,300 full-time job openings in the past week in Connecticut offered less than $35,000 in annual pay, including at-home health agencies, distributors and stores. Some of those employers could benefit in the coming weeks as retailers and other companies shed seasonal workers hired in the run-up to the holidays.
In a “beige book” survey of the regional economy released Wednesday, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York described the job market as “exceptionally tight,” but said businesses continue planning to add jobs in the coming months. On average, employers expect to pay 6 percent more to retain workers and hire new ones this year.
“The still-strong wage gains for production workers suggests that many employers may have to continue bidding up pay in order to get more hires through the door,” Nick Bunker, an economist in Indeed’s Hiring Lab, said in a blog post after the monthly DOL jobs report last week. “The labor market is still recovering, but a more sustainable comeback is only possible in a postpandemic environment.”