Maine’s unemployment rate held steady in January, according to data from the Maine Department of Labor.
January’s unemployment rate was 7.5%, unchanged from December’s revised rate and down from 8.4% one year ago. The number of unemployed people was 52,300, a drop of 6,300 from the same time last year. The DOL also released revisions to its annual benchmark estimates and found that for most of 2010, the number of nonfarm jobs in the state remained relatively unchanged, an improvement over the 30,000 lost jobs over previous two years. The state gained jobs from October through January, and the number of jobs in January increased 7,100, the largest monthly gain ever recorded in Maine, according to a press release from the DOL.
Nationally, the unemployment rate dropped from 9.4% in December to 9.0%. The New England average rate was 8.2%.