Unemployment in June Up for 3rd Month
The state's unemployment rate is up to 8.1 percent.
Thursday, Jul 19, 2012 | Updated 3:24 PM EDT
The Connecticut Department of Labor says the state's unemployment rate jumped to 8.1 percent in June, as cuts in government jobs and at the casinos overshadowed employment gains in the private sector.
The agency said on Thursday that the 0.3 percent increase from May included an increase of 5,000 jobs in the private sector, led by education and health services.
“The addition of 5,000 private sector jobs this month brings the total number of jobs created since January of last year to more than 22,000. Our unemployment rate is down 13 percent over the same time period. And all of this happened while we’ve been working hard to streamline state government, which now has nearly 3,000 fewer employees,” Gov. Dannel Malloy said.
However, job growth in the private sector was offset by a decline of 3,600 jobs in government, particularly in local public administration, which includes the state's two Indian-run casinos.
Overall, Connecticut added 1,400 jobs. Since June 2011, the state's job market added 8,800 jobs, a weak half-percent increase.
It's the third straight monthly rise in unemployment.
“Let’s put this month’s job figure into context. It was announced last month that 102,000 private sector jobs were created nationally. That means with 5,000 private sector jobs created here in Connecticut, our state is responsible for 5 percent of the country’s job growth in the last month even though we only account for about 1 percent of the country’s population,” Malloy said. “We clearly have a long way to go, but let me be clear – job creation continues to be my top priority.”
Malloy said part of the reason for the increase is that more people are looking for work.
