After holding steady for four months at 8 percent, Connecticut’s unemployment rate inched up in June to 8.1 percent.
The unemployment rate is still down from last June when it was around 8.5 percent.
“The greatly extended public school year due to storm disruptions (Sandy and blizzard) seemed to impact typical seasonal job patterns in education and may have some influence on summer hiring patterns going forward,” Andy Condon, director of the Labor Department’s Office of Research, said. “The second wettest June on record in the state may have dampened job growth in some sectors as well.”
The state did see an increase in employment, but just by 500 jobs. The job gain marks the fourth monthly increase in a row and the fifth monthly gain in the first six months of 2013.
“What we’re seeing right now is sustainable job growth, but at a slow rate,” Connecticut Business and Industry Association Economist Peter Gioia, said.
Connecticut added 10,800 new jobs year over year, and most areas of the state saw gains in the last month.
Connecticut has now recovered 58,700 positions or 48.4 percent of the 121,200 seasonally adjusted jobs that were lost in the state since the March 2008 to February 2010 recession.
The job recovery effort is 40 months old and averaging roughly 1,468 nonfarm jobs per month since the end of the recession in February 2010.
The private sector has been somewhat more positive and has recovered 63,900 or 1,598 jobs per month out of the of the 114,000 private jobs that were lost during the same employment downturn. At 1,650,500 in June, nonfarm jobs are currently at an employment recovery highpoint in the state, according to the Labor Department’s report.
Even though the unemployment rate has increased slightly this month it’s still down by 11,200 since June 2012.
The 7.6 unemployment rate nationally is expected to stay the same as it was in May.
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