Connecticut added 4,800 more jobs in December, pushing the state jobless rate down slightly, to 6.4 percent, state labor officials say.
In all, the state added a combined 26,700 jobs last year, finished 2014 with an unemployment rate 1 percentage point lower than the 7.4 percent jobless rate posted in December 2013, the state Department of Labor said Monday.
The state counted 121,406 residents without jobs as of Dec. 31.
The government sector and private “supersector’’ employers in leisure and hospitality, manufacturing, education and health services and information supersector all gained jobs last month. Construction and mining; trade, transportation & utilities; professional, scientific, and technical; and the financial activities all lost jobs in December, the agency said.
“Connecticut finishes 2014 on an encouraging note with more than 80 percent of nonfarm jobs recovered from the Great Recession — almost 94 percent for the private sector,” said Andy Condon, the labor department’s director of the office of research. “Employment gains were widespread across most industries and regions, although wages are slower to recover …”
