Mass. unemployment rate remains at 9.2 percent
Massachusetts added jobs for the fourth consecutive month in May, boosted by temporary hiring for the US Census and strong gains in private sector employment, the state Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development said in a report today.
The state unemployment rate held at 9.2 percent, unchanged from April and a half-point below the national rate of 9.7 percent.
Massachusetts employers expanded payrolls by nearly 16,000 jobs last month, after adding about 19,000 in April, the state reported. The federal government, adding 8,200 jobs in May, accounted for more than half of the monthly gains, which state officials attributed to the hiring of workers for the census.
Still, analysts characterized the private sector job gains as solid, particularly after the April's burst of job growth. Private employers added 7,000 jobs in May and 15,000 in April.
"Those are a lot of jobs, and that's a fast rate of growth,'' said Alan Clayton-Matthews, an economics professor at Northeastern University.
Since job growth resumed in February, Massachusetts has regained about 45,000 of the more than 165,000 jobs lost in the recent recession, according to state employment data. More than 300,000 residents are out of work and the jobless rate remains above the 9.1 percent peak of the recession of the 1990s.
The state, however, is recovering at faster pace than after the '90s downturn and 2001 dot-com recession, when Massachusetts badly lagged the nation, analysts said. The state has already gained more jobs since January than it did in best year for job growth in the recovery that followed the 2001 recession. In that year, 2006, the state gained about 38,000 jobs.
Massachusetts also appears to be recovering faster than the nation as a whole, analysts said. National employment, also boosted by Census hiring, increased by more than 400,000 jobs in May, but only about 1 in 10 were in the private sector, compared to nearly 1 in 2 in Massachusetts. Also today, the US Labor Department reported that first time claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose to 472,000 last week from 460,000 the previous week.
"We still have a large hole to climb out of, and a long way to go to create opportunities for all those displaced workers," said Michael Goodman, a professor and economic analyst at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. "But when you've had two months of impressive job growth, and four consecutive months of job growth overall, that's a positive trend."
May's private sector job gains were concentrated in three sectors. Leisure and hospitality, which includes hotels and restaurants, added 4,700 jobs. Education and health services gained 4,000 jobs. The hard hit construction industry which lost one in four jobs during the recession, gained 1,400 jobs last month, after adding 3,400 in April.
Financial services led job losses, shedding 1,200 in May, after two consecutive months of gains. Retailers shed 900. Information, which includes software publishers, lost 200 jobs, Manufacturing lost 100 jobs, after gaining 1,100 jobs in April.
Professional and businesses services lost 200 jobs, but a key technology component of the sector, professional scientific, and technical services, added 2,300 jobs. Those gains were not enough to offset losses in other components of the sector, such as management and administrative services.
Government added 8,800 jobs in May. In addition to federal increases, local government added 600 jobs. State employment was flat.
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