Unemployment rate improves slightly, but there are still fewer jobs than before pandemic
A graph depicts the historical decline in unemployment rates in recent years, followed by a spike in 2020. The November rate is only slightly less than the October one, shown in the right-hand column.
Maine’s unemployment rate made a modest improvement last month, falling from 5.4% in October to 5% in November.
The number of nonfarm payroll jobs in Maine was little changed, down 500 to 588,600 on a seasonally adjusted basis, the state Labor Department reported Friday morning. The slight downturn followed six months of gains as the state has begun to recover economically, the department said in a news release.
The number of jobs in the leisure and hospitality sector decreased by 900, which was partially offset by an increase of 500 jobs in the financial activities sector. Jobs in other sectors were virtually unchanged during November.
The number of nonfarm jobs in Maine during November was 55,800 higher than the low in April, soon after the start of the pandemic. But the November tally still remained 7.6% lower than the number of jobs in February, or a shortfall of 48,700.
Nationwide, the unemployment rate decreased 0.2% to 6.7%. In New England, Connecticut recorded a November unemployment rate of 8.2%; Massachusetts had a rate of 6.7%; New Hampshire, 3.8%; Rhode Island, 7.3%; and Vermont, 3.1%.
Within Maine, unemployment rates were lowest for Sagadahoc County, with a non-seasonally adjusted rate of 3.9%, and highest for Oxford County, with a rate of 6.2%.
Among the state’s three metro areas, the non-seasonally adjusted rates were 4.1% in Bangor, 4.4% in Portland-South Portland and 4.7% in Lewiston-Auburn.
As in recent months, the Labor Department cautioned that Maine’s unemployment rate underestimates job displacement, since public health concerns and related factors prevent many jobless people from seeking or being available to work, as they normally would.
Those who were not available or did not engage in work search are not counted as unemployed. If labor force participation was as high as it was in February, before the pandemic, and jobless Mainers were classified correctly, the state’s unemployment rate would have been 8%.
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