Magic Pot of Jobs

Although it’s March, many states are just now releasing their unemployment figures of January. According to most recent information from the Connecticut Department of Labor, 7.3 percent of the state’s population was without work during the first month of this year. During the same month, the national jobless rate was 7.6 percent, which means that the state faired better than much of the country. Despite this, approximately 3,600 jobs in Connecticut were lost during this time period. This information was released late because a yearly benchmarking adjustment had to be handled first.

Losing these jobs brought the state’s nonfarm employment down to 1,670,300. Over the last 12 months employers have done away with somewhere around 38,300 jobs in Connecticut.

“Connecticut continues to feel the negative effects from the current economic crisis facing the nationa, but at a slower pace this month,” said state Labor Economist John Tirinzonie in a recent press release. “While job losses are occurring in most of our industry sectors, overall, our decline in total employment was less than half the rate of decline nationally.”

As in recent months, the loss of Connecticut jobs was spread out over many industries. Although this can help to reduce the trouble experienced by any one sector, two areas of employment were hit harder than the others. Manufacturing, which is hurting throughout the nation, did away with around 2,200 jobs in the area. Construction also saw a large decline, with employers doing away with around 1,500 positions. This was likely tied to the fact that the housing market continues to suffer. With a smaller need for new homes, the number of construction projects has drastically decreased.

Other areas of employment that suffered in Connecticut included the financial activities sector, professional and business services, and the government sector. Each of these industries did away with around 500 jobs in the state.

Despite these job losses, several industries saw some increases in employment. The leisure and hospitality industry added approximately 800 new Connecticut jobs. Employers in trade, transportation and utilities also increased the number of positions they provide by adding 600 jobs. Health services, an industry that is doing extremely well across the nation, created a total of 400 jobs in the area during January.

In December the state’s Department of Labor reported that somewhere around 29,300 jobs were lost in the state during 2008. Since then, the figure has been revised to show a loss of 30,800 positions. According to the data, approximately 90 percent of the jobs lost were cut in the last four months of the year.

Tags: Connecticut Jobs

This entry was posted on Friday, March 13th, 2009 at 11:40 pm and is filed under Job Search. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.