Unemployment Rate Drops as Connecticut Adds Hundreds of Jobs in July

Connecticut added roughly 700 jobs in July, continuing 2024’s steady job growth and an ongoing decline in the state’s unemployment rate, according to a monthly report released Thursday by the Department of Labor.

The agency reported a 0.3% decrease in the unemployment rate, which stood at 3.6% in July — well below the national average of 4.3%, according to the department. Meanwhile, private sector employment grew by around 1,900 jobs, reaching a new high of 1,477,800 payroll positions, the report found.

In a Thursday press release, Labor Commissioner Danté Bartolomeo said that July’s growth had been slower than the previous months, but remained a positive sign nonetheless.

“Overall, the data points to a strong economy with low unemployment and tens of thousands of job opportunities across industry sectors,” Bartolomeo said. “This continues to be a good market for job seekers.”

The report’s strongest job growth came in the Other Services Sector and the Administrative Support Services Sector, Patrick Flaherty, the agency’s director of research and information, said.

Although jobs numbers are often revised in subsequent monthly reports, the July report found that the strong 3,300-job increase reported in June held steady after revisions.

In a video posted to the Labor Department’s Youtube channel, Flaherty said that factors like changing weather patterns had made seasonal adjustments to monthly labor figures more difficult, making trends more valuable than monthly snapshots of the state’s labor situation.

Those trends have shown steady growth in Connecticut’s workforce.

“Taking the slightly longer view, Connecticut has seen job growth every month so far in 2024, total employment is now 105.4% recovered from the COVID lockdown, and private sector employment is at an all-time high,” he said.

Posted by Hugh McQuaid