Unemployment in Massachusetts ticked upward in December, ending 2025 with a rate 0.6 percentage points higher than when the year started.
Massachusetts’ unemployment rate climbed 0.1 percentage points to 4.8% in December, according to data released Friday by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development.Â
The report of the Bay State’s December unemployment rate marks the second consecutive month the federal government has released state unemployment figures after it canceled October’s results due to the government shutdown. Massachusetts’ November unemployment rate was 4.7%, a figure unchanged from September.Â
Massachusetts’ growing unemployment rate created a wider divide from the nation’s rate, which sat at 4.4% in December.
As the state’s unemployment rose slightly last month, its workforce participation rate declined just as much, a grouping defined as the number of residents 16 years and older who worked or were unemployed and actively sought work in the last four weeks. The workforce participation rate dipped 0.1 percentage points to 66.5%.
In December, 3.76 million state residents were employed and 189,000 were unemployed.
In a stark trend reversal, the leisure and hospitality industry by far gained the most jobs over the month of the 10 industries analyzed by the EOLW. The sector added 5,700 jobs in December, though it rounded out 2025 having lost 1,200 positions over the year.
The education and health services industry came in second, gaining 1,000 jobs over the month, followed by manufacturing which added 700.
The trade, transportation, and utilities sector shed 1,700 positions in December, the most of the EOLW-analyzed industries. The market was followed by professional and business services, which eliminated 1,000 positions last month and a total 2,700 over the year, by far the most of the 10 sectors.Â
Mica Kanner-Mascolo is a staff writer at Worcester Business Journal, who primarily covers the healthcare, manufacturing, and higher education industries.
