Connecticut unemployment discussed in Economic Digest

Posted on September 8, 2013

CT’s Economic Digest recently delivered a report highlighting the number of workers in the state with Connecticut unemployment benefits.

According to the Digest, the number of workers in CT covered by Unemployment Insurance (UI) increased by 1.0 percent during 2012, according to most recent data published from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) program.

This increase built upon the 1.0 percent increase from 2011, as opposed to the 1.2
percent decline noted in 2010. Total private industry employment, constituting 85.5 percent of the State’s employment total [little changed from 2011’s 85.3], increased by 1.2 percent. Government employment decreased by 0.5 percent year-over-year.

Several sectors continued to improve. The health care and social assistance, accommodation and food services; administrative and waste management and transportation and warehousing sectors all showed increases. Accommodation and food services was the largest gainer, expanding by 4,436 jobs.

Few sectors declined in 2012, though they were led by government with a loss of 1,188, and manufacturing with a drop of 1,073. The drop in manufacturing wiped out all of the gains in employment that the sector experienced in 2011.

Goods-producing sectors include agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting; mining; construction; and
manufacturing. The remaining sectors are aggregated into the service-providing domain.

For 2012, the goods- producing domain encompassed 13.9 percent of total covered employment, with the remaining 86.1 percent in the service- providing domain. The goods- producing domain shrank by 992 jobs while service-producing employment grew by 1.2 percent, or 16,647, at the same time.

According to the digest, Connecticut average annual wages varied greatly among industries and within each sector in 2012. It should be noted that much of this difference in pay level can be attributed to factors such as hours worked (full or part-time), workforce composition, wages including bonuses or stock options, and seasonal and weather-related influences.