The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
State jobs momentum slows in August, ahead of holiday hiring
Hiring appeared to slow in Connecticut in August in line with the country as a whole, but many companies are pushing hard to convince people to apply for available jobs as they look ahead to the holiday crush.
The state Department of Labor released estimates on Thursday that the state added 3,300 jobs in August, based on ongoing surveys of employers. That was coming off an estimated net gain of 11,100 jobs in July, about 1,700 more than DOL had determined initially.
The August gain pushed the state’s employment estimate to 5,300 jobs above the 1.6 million mark, adjusted to account for jobs that last only through the summer months. The leisure and hospitality sector led Connecticut with a 1.4 percent boost in employment in August.
The official unemployment rate dropped by a tenth of a point to 7.2 percent in August, with the U.S. rate at 5.2 percent. Just over 80,000 openings in Connecticut were listed on the Indeed jobs board as of Thursday afternoon.
“We’ve had tens of thousands of new families — net new families — move into the state of Connecticut, and you want to build on that momentum,” Gov. Ned Lamont said Monday at Dinosaur State Park in Rocky Hill. “We think this is an opportune time to let everybody take a second look at Connecticut, and they’re responding.”
DOL estimates the state has recovered 69 percent of the jobs lost after mass closures of business establishments between March and May of 2020.
“During the pandemic, the economy just dropped off a cliff. Jobs were gone overnight, but we are showing faster recovery growth as well,” stated Patrick Flaherty, DOL director of research, in written comments accompanying the Thursday report. “Many workers are taking advantage of the current market to find new jobs; the quit rate is at a record high. People are voluntarily leaving their jobs for other opportunities, something we didn’t see during the Great Recession recovery.”
But other motivations could be nudging more people to look for work. Nearly two weeks ago, expanded unemployment benefits came to an end that Congress had created at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Until Sept. 4, filers had been eligible for an extra $300 every week on top of their regular benefit of half of their average pay prior to losing their jobs.
Also hitting its sunset was the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which extended unemployment benefits for the first time to people who are self-employed and do not contribute to state unemployment trust funds.
And larger businesses are now bracing for the possibility of additional defections across departments, after the Biden administration’s announcement of mandatory vaccines or testing for employers save those with less than 100 people on the payroll. The directive has drawn multiple legal challenges, including in New York.
“It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen . ... the changes that are happening right now from Baby Boomers to career nomads, to up-skilling talent, to technology and digitization,” said Gary Burnison, CEO of the recruitment firm Korn Ferry which has offices in New York City and Stamford, last week. “I really believe this is going to continue for the next couple of years. We’re talking not only companies making changes, but also people making changes, life choices of what they want to do or where they want to live.”