Mass. unemployment rate is unchaged at 9.5%

By Robert Gavin, Globe Staff

Massachusetts employers last month added jobs for the first time in nearly two years as the state unemployment rate held steady at a nearly 34-year high, the state Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development reported today.

Led by gains in education and health services, the state added 1,500 jobs in February, after revised data showed that employment remained flat in January. It was the first monthly gain since July 2008.

The state has lost 165,000 jobs, or about 5 percent of employment, since the recession began here nearly two years ago.

The unemployment rate, meanwhile, was unchanged at 9.5 percent, breaking a streak of 22 consecutive months of increases in the jobless rate. It matches the level reached in August 1976, when the state was recovering from the deep recession spurred by the energy shock of the Arab oil embargo.

The national unemployment rate, 9.7 percent, was also unchanged in February.

Employment growth in Massachusetts was inconsistent across major sectors last month. The state's largest, education and health services, added 3,800 jobs in February, while other key industries, such as financial services and professional and business services, lost jobs.

Financial services shed 800 jobs while professional and business services, which includes law firms, consultants, and technical firms, lost 100. Other sectors that lost jobs were: leisure and hospitality, which includes restaurants and hotels and shed 1,300; government, which shed 1,500; and retail, which shed 200.

Construction added 300 jobs in February, the first monthly gain since October. Other services, which includes repair and other personal services, added 2,000 jobs. Manufacturing employment was unchanged from January.