Maine unemployment rate plummeted 3% in August
Maine’s unemployment rate declined “erratically” in August, plummeting from 9.9% to 6.9%, the state Department of Labor said Friday.
After the July spike, the August rate is nearly as low as the 6.7% unemployment figure recorded in June.
The number of nonfarm payroll jobs in Maine increased by 6,100 in August, with the private sector accounting for 6,000 of them. Primary drivers of the growth were the leisure and hospitality, health care and social assistance, professional and business services, and retail sectors, according to the Labor Department.
The 582,000 nonfarm jobs in August is up 49,200 from the April low, but remained 8.7% lower than in February, when the pandemic began to affect the labor market.
After sharp job losses in the spring, the number of jobs in the Portland-South Portland metro remained 10% lower than in February. Jobs remained down 7% in the Bangor metro, 5% in the Lewiston-Auburn metro, and 9% in non-metro areas.
The August U.S. unemployment rate of 8.4% was down from 10.2% for July and the New England rate of 9.2% was down from 12.7%. August rates for other states in the region were 6.5% in New Hampshire, 4.8% in Vermont, 11.3% in Massachusetts, 12.8% in Rhode Island, and 8.1% in Connecticut.
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