Two readings of one report. Connecticut’s Department of Labor looked at its August numbers and called the state’s economy “steady and stable.” The state’s biggest business lobby looked at the same numbers and saw an eighth straight monthly decline in employment.
The department’s report, released September 17, showed payroll jobs down 300 in August, the result of losses in government. Private-sector job numbers hit a new high, and the unemployment rate slipped by 0.1% to 5.1%. July’s gain was revised up, from 2,800 jobs to 3,100. Commissioner Danté Bartolomeo said employers remain cautious about hiring, which keeps job seekers in the market longer. Research director Patrick Flaherty described August as essentially flat after five months of solid growth, and said the department expects a slow, steady year if the national economy holds up.
What the department highlighted
Connecticut’s 0.8% job growth rate beat the national rate of 0.4%, according to the department. Healthcare and construction added jobs, with construction at an 18-year high. Manufacturing lost jobs in August but is still above where it stood a year earlier. The department also attributed a decline in private education jobs to survey timing and the late Labor Day.
The labor force shrank by 4,100 people in August. The department noted that Connecticut is an aging state with many retirements, and that changes in federal immigration policy are widely reported to affect participation in the labor force. It said the rise in unemployment over the past year came largely from new entrants to the job market, not layoffs, and that unemployment claims are running at about last year’s level.
The business lobby’s count
The Connecticut Business and Industry Association, citing the same data, drew a grimmer picture. Total employment, which includes independent contractors and the self-employed, fell for an eighth month and sits at its lowest non-pandemic level since 2014, the group said. It put the 12-month drop at 72,400, the biggest in 50 years outside the COVID-19 pandemic. The labor force, at its lowest in five years, is down 54,000 over 12 months (2.8%), and 54,500 below its pre-pandemic level, while the national figure is up 3.2%.
A year ago Connecticut’s unemployment rate was 4.1%, the lowest in New England. The association noted that it is now the highest in the region and tied for highest in the country, against a national rate of 4.1%. It also cited a participation rate of 62%, down two percentage points since August 2025, with 18,000 more people unemployed than a year earlier. It counted job openings at 86,238, up 4,552. The department’s own release took a more cautious view of openings, pointing to more than 80,000 jobs posted online while noting that employers may not be hiring for every one.
Chris DiPentima, the association’s president and CEO, called the shortage of workers “the most significant obstacle facing Connecticut’s economy.” He added: “This is not a jobs crisis in the traditional sense, this is a people crisis.” He pointed to the CBIA Foundation’s consumer survey, which found that high living costs are voters’ top concern, and said candidates should focus on helping families stay and businesses hire.
Payrolls and residents measure different things
The Yankee Institute, a think tank, argued on September 29 that the two sets of figures do not cancel each other out. The payroll count is based on where people work, while the household estimates follow where residents live, so a Massachusetts resident working in Connecticut shows up in the first but not the second. It noted that private-sector payrolls reached a record 1.496 million in August, even as the estimated number of employed Connecticut residents fell from about 1.855 million to 1.783 million. The department cautions that the two measures should be judged over several months, not by one month’s swing.
The September report is due October 19.
Sources
- CT Dept. of Labor: August Jobs Down 300; Unemployment Rate Drops to 5.1% (official release)
- August Jobs Report: Supply, Demand Gap Widens » CBIA
- Connecticut’s Labor Market Is Sending Two Very Different Signals – Yankee Institute
