Unemployment rate was stable in January, pre-coronavirus
While it’s too early to say how much the coronavirus crisis may affect Maine’s unemployment rate, the state Department of Labor on Monday said January’s figure was basically the same as the one in December.
January’s preliminary seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 3.1%, compared to 3% in December and 3.2% in January 2019, according to a news release.
“Given the margins of error, the unemployment rate effectively has not changed in more than two years,” Glenn Mills, the Labor Department’s chief economist, said in the release.
Maine’s unemployment rate has been below 4% for 49 consecutive months, the longest such streak on record.
The number of non-farm jobs in the state during January, 639,700, was up 4,400 from one year ago. The private sector accounted for 538,000 jobs, an increase of 4,000 over the year, with the largest job gains in the health care and social assistance and manufacturing sectors.
The national unemployment rate was 3.6% in January, compared to 3.5% in December and down from 4% one year ago. The January 2020 rates for other New England states were: 2.4% in Vermont, 2.6% in New Hampshire, 2.8% in Massachusetts, 3.4% in Rhode Island and 3.7% in Connecticut.
According to data that was not seasonally adjusted, unemployment across Maine’s 16 counties was lowest in Cumberland County, at 2.9%, and highest in Washington County, 7.5%.
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