Connecticut lost more than four thousand jobs in September, ahead of the government shutdown, but job creation stayed flat in October.
The state Department of Labor played catch up with this latest announcement: September's figures were delayed by the federal shutdown, but the picture that emerges isn't pretty.
Connecticut lost 4,100 jobs in September, and a further 100 in October. The October numbers included losses in the public sector, and were actually boosted by net new hiring in the private sector of about 1,000 jobs. Economist Peter Gioia of the Connecticut Business and Industry Association said a lot of that activity came in low-paid service jobs.
"We're down 3,500 jobs in manufacturing," Gioia said, "and we're down 3,400 in financial services. Those are key areas, because those are the real economic base industries of Connecticut. They're wealth producing -- they have the jobs here, but they sell around the country and around the world, and bring that wealth back into Connecticut. Those job losses are actually a more serious impact on the economy than their overall losses would show."
Despite the lack of job creation, the state's unemployment rate, calculated by a separate household survey, fell to below eight percent for the first time in more than four years. Gioia said this may reflect people dropping out of the labor force because they're unable to find work. He does expect a pick-up in employment in the final months of the year, as the economy bounces back from the shutdown. He said the state will likely create a total of around 14,000 new jobs this year, essentially the same as it achieved in 2012.
