Maine Unemployment Rate 5.2 Percent in January

March 17, 2015

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 17, 2015 Contact: Glenn Mills 207-621-5192

State Labor Commissioner Jeanne Paquette released January workforce estimates for Maine.

Seasonally Adjusted Statewide Data

Household Survey Estimates ? The preliminary seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 5.2 percent for January was down from 5.5 percent in December and 6.0 percent one year ago. The number of unemployed declined 6,400 over the year to 38,000.

The employment to population ratio estimate of 60.1 percent remained above the U.S. average (59.3 percent) for the 88th consecutive month.1

The U.S. preliminary unemployment rate of 5.7 percent was little changed from 5.6 percent in December and down from 6.6 percent one year ago. The New England unemployment rate averaged 5.3 percent. Rates for other states were 4.0 percent in New Hampshire, 4.1 percent in Vermont, 5.1 percent in Massachusetts, 6.5 percent in Rhode Island, and 6.3 percent in Connecticut.

Labor force and unemployment data is available at http://www.maine.gov/labor/cwri/laus1.html .

Payroll Survey Estimates ? The preliminary nonfarm payroll jobs estimate for January of 601,400 is down 500 from one year ago. Private sector jobs were down 400 and government was down 100. This is the first over the year decline in jobs estimates since June 2011. These estimates tend to be volatile from month to month. The large decline in January is expected to largely be offset by increases in February and subsequent months.2

Nonfarm payroll jobs data is available at http://www.maine.gov/labor/cwri/ces1.html .

Not Seasonally Adjusted Substate Data

The not seasonally adjusted statewide unemployment rate was 5.9 percent in January, down from 7.0 percent one year ago. Not seasonally adjusted rates ranged from 4.2 percent in Cumberland County to 10.1 percent in Washington County. Rates tended to be lower than the statewide average in southern and central counties and higher than average in northern and rim counties.

The unemployment rate was below the statewide average in all three metro areas: Portland-South Portland (4.5 percent), Lewiston-Auburn (5.3 percent) and Bangor (5.3 percent).

This release is available at http://www.maine.gov/labor/cwri/news/release.html .

February data will be released Friday, March 27 (Data Release Schedule: http://www.maine.gov/labor/cwri/releaseDates.html ).

NOTES:

1. Preliminary labor force estimates, including unemployment and employment to population ratios for Maine tend to move in a direction for several months and then reverse course. Those directional trends are largely driven by a smoothing procedure and may not indicate a change in underlying workforce conditions. Annual revisions (to be published in March 2016) will moderate or eliminate those directional patterns. A comparison of preliminary and annually revised unemployment rates is available at http://cwri.blogspot.com/2014/03/workforce-data-revisions-part-1.html .

2. Nonfarm payroll jobs estimates tend to be volatile from month to month. Users should look to the trend over multiple months rather than the change from one specific month to another. Estimates for the period from October 2014 to September 2015 will be replaced with actual payroll data in March 2016. Those benchmark revisions are likely to show less volatility than preliminary estimates.

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