Maine's unemployment rate falls, slightly, from April's all-time high
Maine’s unemployment rate, which had previously tripled to the highest level on record, decreased slightly in May to 9.3%, the state Department of Labor announced Friday.
In April, the rate had soared to 10.4% — slightly revised from the initial report of 10.6% — as the state endured its first full month of the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to April, Maine’s unemployment rate had remained below 4% for over four years.
But “workforce conditions began to recover in May from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Labor Department economist Glenn Mills said in a news release.
The number of nonfarm payroll jobs in the state increased by 14,300 in May, the largest monthly gain on record.
The private sector added 18,400 jobs, primarily in the leisure and hospitality, manufacturing, retail, and health care and social assistance sectors, each of which had sharp job losses in the previous two months. Those gains were partially offset by a decrease of 4,100 jobs in the public sector, mostly in state government.
Despite the unemployment rate’s modest decline in May, however, it was the second-highest monthly figure recorded by the Labor Department.
The national unemployment rate also fell slightly in May, from 14.7% to 13.3%.
Mills cautioned that the latest unemployment figures understate the true number of people, both in Maine and nationwide, who are without a job. Public health restrictions prevented many from actively seeking employment, and so they were uncounted in the estimates, and others were misclassified in the data-gathering.
As a result, the official estimate of the number of unemployed workers in Maine, 62,100, is about half of the actual number of people who should have been counted, according to the release.
In addition, the Labor Department and law enforcement continue to investigate thousands of recent reports of fraudulent applications for unemployment benefits.
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