Connecticut gained 900 jobs in January but they weren’t enough to prevent the state’s jobless rate from ticking up to 5.5 percent, state labor data shows.
Five of the state’s 10 major industry supersectors added workers in January, while three lost employment, the state Department of Labor said Friday.
The state’s December unemployment rate was a seasonally adjusted 5.4 percent. While the rate ticked up from December, it’s down from 6.1 percent in Jan. 2015.
Among supersectors, leisure/hospitality, finance, government, construction/mining and manufacturing gained workers in January. Education/health services, professional/business services, trade and transportation and utilities, and lost employment, the labor agency said.
Employment in the information industry sector was unchanged, while the government supersector added 800 positions.
Gov. Dannel Malloy released a statement Friday saying that the private sector’s addition of more than 11,000 over the past year demonstrates progress but that the January job counts “are also emblematic of our new economic reality.”
“We have been positioning the state to support long-term growth to meet our new reality as we work to make changes that will lead to even greater gains in both total job growth and overall wages,” Malloy said. “I won’t be satisfied until everyone who wants a job has one.”
