As the U.S. economy continues to flirt with a recession in 2023, Connecticut will surrender some of the gains it has made in its ongoing recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.Connecticut’s economy showed steady improvement in 2022 as the state added about 39,000 jobs, cut unemployment to 4%, and expanded real output by 1.7%, according to […]
As the U.S. economy continues to flirt with a recession in 2023, Connecticut will surrender some of the gains it has made in its ongoing recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Connecticut’s economy showed steady improvement in 2022 as the state added about 39,000 jobs, cut unemployment to 4%, and expanded real output by 1.7%, according to the most recent quarterly data.
State GDP has returned to its pre-pandemic levels and jobs nearly so, though both remain shy of their 2008 high-water marks. The state’s labor market is remarkably tight. Usually, unemployed workers outnumber available jobs; today there are three openings for every two jobless residents.
Darker clouds are gathering on the horizon, and most economists expect the U.S. to tip into recession in 2023, despite the fact the key markers used by the National Bureau of Economic Research to formally call a downturn are proving surprisingly resilient.
Recession or no, the U.S. economy will almost certainly slow, perhaps to a crawl, amid climbing interest rates to tame inflation, lingering COVID kinks in global supply chains, and Putin’s brutal war on Ukraine, which has roiled commodity markets.
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For Connecticut, that would translate into nonfarm job losses, rising unemployment and flat to negative GDP growth.
