Mass. unemployment rate holds to seven-year low
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After a sluggish August, companies were hiring again in Sept.
The Bay State’s unemployment rate held at 4.6 percent in June, the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development (EOLWD) reported Thursday.
The jobless rate has not been this low since December 2007.
Massachusetts also had its 10th straight month of job gains. The new preliminary job estimates for June from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) show a gain of 10,500 positions. During the last four months, Massachusetts has added 38,900 jobs, the EOLWD said.
The June rate represents a drop of 1.1 percentage points from June 2014's jobless rate of 5.7 percent. And the state’s June unemployment rate is 0.7 of a percentage point lower than the national rate of 5.3 percent reported by the BLS.
“We are seeing very strong job growth,” Labor and Workforce Development Secretary Ronald Walker II said in a statement. “Not only are jobs continuing to grow in many sectors, we are seeing many more people entering the labor force, encouraged by the strong job growth.”
The sector with the largest job gains over the month was professional, scientific and business services, which added 5,200 jobs, or a 1 percent increase. Over the year, the sector has added the most jobs of any sector, with 21,900, a 4.2 percent increase, the EOLWD reported.
The leisure and hospitality sector added 4,800 jobs in June. Transportation, warehousing and utilities added 2,000 jobs. Wholesale trade gained 400, while retail trade lost 1,200 positions. Manufacturing gained 900 jobs, and construction gained 700.
Over the month, jobs were up 10,500 in Massachusetts with a private-sector gain of 10,700. The federal and state government lost a couple of hundred jobs. Another sector losing jobs was education and health services, which lost 1,000.
The BLS also revised downward its May job figure, reporting the state gained 5,200 jobs, instead of the 7,400 the agency reported last month.
The unemployment rate in Massachusetts peaked in September 2009 at 8.8 percent.
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