September 30, 2020
Greater Worcester unemployment rate improves to 10.3%
Photo | Grant Welker
A vacant convenience store stands across from Worcester City Hall.
By Grant Welker
The unemployment rate in the Worcester area improved to 10.3% in August, down from 14.9% a month earlier, according to new data Wednesday from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
That rate is still vastly worse than a year ago, when the rate stood at 3.2%, and in the last months of 2019 when the rate dropped below 3%. But it's a substantial improvement from earlier in the coronavirus pandemic, when the rate ballooned to 16.1% in June.
Unemployment rates improved across much of Massachusetts, which itself rallied from the nation's worst rate in June and July to seventh worst in August. The statewide rate last month was 11.3%.
Central Massachusetts has improved, too, but has been particularly hard hit. The Worcester area was 22nd worst among nearly 400 urban areas in July, but improved to 52nd worst in August. The Fitchburg, Leominster and Gardner area, with a rate of 12.6%, was 14th worst. It was sixth worst the month before.
The Worcester metro area, which includes Worcester County and Connecticut's Windham County, has suffered worse unemployment than the rest of the country in general, with a bigger drop early in the pandemic and a slower rebound since, according to BLS. Total nonfarm employment in the region has dropped by nearly 7% from a year ago as of August, leaving 19,600 additional people out of work.
Statewide, nonfarm employment has dropped in the past year by 403,000 workers, or nearly 11%.
Gateway Cities across Massachusetts have been especially hard-hit, including in Central Massachusetts.
The city of Worcester's unemployment rate in August was 13.3%, and Fitchburg's was 15.5%. Those rates are among the state's worst, along with Lawrence at 23.0%, Springfield at 18.6%, Holyoke at 16.5%, New Bedford at 15.7% and Fall River at 14.7%.
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