Greater Worcester unemployment swings back down to 5.2% pandemic low
Photo | Nathan Fiske
Employees at TaraVista, the eighth largest inpatient behavioral health center in Central Massachusetts. The 320-bed Worcester Recovery Center & Hospital is the largest.
The Worcester metropolitan area, which includes Worcester County and Windham County, Conn., saw a drop to a 5.2% unemployment rate in October, down 0.2 percentage points from the previous month, according to Thursday’s report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The 5.2% rate ties the lowest the unemployment figure has been during the coronavirus pandemic. The region hit 5.2% in May, but saw an uptick through the summer. Greater Worcester was at a 3.4% unemployment rate before the pandemic hit.
In October, there were 18,409 unemployed in the Worcester metro region, about 300 fewer than the previous month. After a September dip in the labor force, the region is back up to almost 352,000 in the labor force, marking a 3,000-person increase.
The Leominster-Gardner metropolitan area also saw a 0.2-percentage-point decrease in unemployment, from 6.1% in September to 5.9%. The number of unemployed in the region dropped by roughly 100 people over the course of the month, and the labor force grew from 77,906 to 78,492.
The two regions are defying statewide trends, as Massachusetts’ unemployment rose for the third consecutive month in October to 5.3%.
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