Connecticut’s economy shed nearly 120,000 jobs during the Great Recession, according to revised estimates released Wednesday by the state Labor Department.
That number represents a 16,000 job loss increase over previous estimates, showing the economic downturn has had an even more profound impact on Connecticut than previously thought.
Meanwhile, Connecticut lost 2,700 jobs in January, but gained 22,600 jobs over the past year, a mixed bag of data that shows the state’s economic recovery remains fragile at best, the state Labor Department says.
Connecticut’s January unemployment rate was unchanged from 9 percent in December. The national jobless rate in February was 8.9 percent, which means if Connecticut didn’t add jobs last month, the state’s unemployment rate could exceed the national average for the first time since the Great Recession began in 2008.
“Our revised data show that we’ve made somewhat better strides toward recovery than we had previously
determined,” said Labor Statistics Supervisor Salvatore DiPillo. “While these revised data show that we lost 16,000 more jobs over the course of the recession than we originally estimated, our new data show that we regained jobs at a faster rate. At this point we have added 24,700 private sector jobs in the past year, with gains in all but two private industry sectors.”
The state’s leisure and hospitality industry was down 4,000 jobs in January due to numerous storms that dumped snow measured in feet rather than inches. Trade, transportation and utilities jobs were down 2,000 and manufacturing employment was off by 1,200, The Associated Press reports.
