Connecticut added nearly 5,000 jobs in March, with the hospitality industry getting a boost from the NCAA basketball tournament and St. Patrick’s Day.
According to the latest information from the monthly state jobs report, Connecticut’s unemployment rate held steady at 4.5% for the month of March. That’s seven tenths of a percentage point higher than the national unemployment rate, which stands at 3.8%.
“Connecticut added 13,300 jobs in the first three months of 2024, solid growth by any standard,” said Patrick Flaherty, Director of the Office of Research at the Connecticut Department of Labor. “Job increases in leisure and hospitality were boosted by increased interest in March Madness and St. Patrick’s Day falling on a weekend while March retail trade benefited from an early Easter. We do not expect job growth to continue at this pace throughout the year, but 2024 is off to a great start.”
With the revisions to last month’s job numbers, Connecticut added an estimated 5,800 jobs in January; 2,600 jobs in February; and 4,900 jobs in March. The increase in jobs was accompanied by a decrease in new first-time unemployment filings as 2,525 people applied for unemployment benefits for the first time last month. That figure is 11% fewer than the number of applications in February, and nearly 13% fewer than filings from the year before.
Additionally, Connecticut workers have been working more hours and earning more in 2024. The average private sector employee worked 33.4 hours in March, up a half hour from March 2023. They also earned $37.39 hourly, a 4.6% increase over the hourly rate a year earlier. The increase outpaced the rising Consumer Price Index, which was up 3.5% year over year.
Connecticut’s payrolls increased by 0.3%, bringing the total number of employed people in the state to 1,709,100. Most of the growth came from Connecticut’s private sector, which added 4,400 jobs in March. The public supersector, which includes all civilian federal, state, local, and tribal government employment, added 500 jobs for the month. Eight of the state’s 10 supersectors reported job growth in March. The information supersector remained unchanged, while the professional and business services supersector lost 1,600 jobs.
All six of Connecticut’s Labor Market Areas showed job growth in March, with the Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk area producing 1,800 jobs, and New Haven coming in second with 1,100 new jobs. At the bottom of the list were the Norwich-New London-Westerly area and the Waterbury area, contributing 400 and 200 jobs respectively.
CBIA president and CEO Chris DiPentima celebrated the continued growth in Connecticut’s jobs sector. “The addition of 4,900 jobs is a very positive sign for Connecticut’s economic momentum,” he said in a statement. ““With an increase of 3,900 people last month, we’re also seeing continued growth in the state’s labor force—those working and those actively looking for work.”
However, he cautioned that the potential for Connecticut’s economic growth to slow still exists due to labor shortages.
“Connecticut now has 86,000 open jobs, and approximately the same number of people looking for work. This is the growth we need to keep pace with the demands of the economy, but it’s important that we don’t take our foot off the gas. Employers continue to cite the worker shortage as their greatest challenge. Solving the workforce challenge will take collaboration and partnerships from across private, public, and community sectors to increase opportunities and career pathways to grow the workforce,” he said.
