Mass. unemployment rate drops to 7.4%
Photo | Grant Welker
Construction is taking place on Route 20 in Shrewsbury for a retail development at the former Edgemere Drive-In site.
The Massachusetts unemployment rate rallied in October, dropping to 7.4% despite lingering high unemployment claims and economic risks from the continuing coronavirus pandemic.
The October rate, released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, is an improvement from a rate the month prior of 9.8%. Massachusetts had the nation's worst unemployment rate in June and July. For October, it was 13th worst.
The state's nonfarm employment improved slightly by 11,400 for a month, an increase of 0.3%.
Unemployment rates across the country improved in October, despite the pandemic beginning its fast climb to what this month has been regular new highs in new daily cases. The country reached 100,000 daily cases for the first time in the first week of November and has more recently topped 180,000 a day more than once.
Unemployment rates improved in 37 states and Washington, D.C., worsened in eight states, and were flat in five states. Nebraska had the nation's best rate at 3.0%, and tourist-dependent Hawaii the worst at 14.3%.
The national unemployment rate declined by a percentage point in October to 6.9% but the rate is roughly double what it was a year prior.
More local information for October is due to be released Dec. 3.
The unemployment rate for the Worcester area dropped in September to 8.8% from 10.3% in August. The Fitchburg, Leominster and Gardner area also improved, to 10.6% from 12.6%.
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