When it comes to the Massachusetts job market, the song remains the same.
Unemployment in the state rose last month, as it has since April, while an influx of new job seekers expanded the pool of available workers, according to a US Labor Department report released Friday. Employers added 1,300 jobs, after shedding 4,100 jobs in July.
The jobless rate rose to 3.7 percent, up two-tenths of a percentage point from the previous month. As is usually the case, unemployment here is lower than the national average, which was 4.2 percent in August.
State jobs data are prone to significant revisions, so it helps to look back over a longer period to get a clearer picture of the trends.
What we see is that in Massachusetts, like the rest of the country, the unemployment rate is being boosted not by a pick-up in layoffs, but by an increase in the number of people looking for work.
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This is a mix of new entrants — high school and college graduates, for example — and folks who have decided they want a paycheck. Some people may have run through their savings from the government’s COVID relief checks, while in two-adult households, one person may be returning to boost the family’s income after a sharp rise in consumer prices.
This broadening of the work force can be good news if there’s enough demand from employers. But hiring has slowed over the past year as employers turn more cautious in the face of a cooling economy and political uncertainty.
The state’s labor force has grown by 78,500 people this year, bringing the participation rate — the percentage of residents with a job or looking for one — to the highest level since January 2020. But only about a third of the increase is from new hires, leaving the unemployment rate at its highest since October 2022.
Larry Edelman can be reached at larry.edelman@globe.com.
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Publish date : 2024-09-20 07:39:00
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