As employees at the newest Marshalls handed out shopping bags and smiles on Thursday morning in Ridgefield, retailers around Connecticut appear to have hired up successfully for the holiday season amid a continuing low unemployment rate in September and October.
The state added 3,700 jobs in October, according to the Connecticut Department of Labor’s newest estimates released Thursday morning, with the unemployment rate staying steady at 3.5 percent. Connecticut unemployment remains below its level last April, even as U.S. unemployment has climbed a half percentage point to 3.9 percent.
In the first week of November, the number of people receiving unemployment assistance in Connecticut dropped below the 20,000 mark for the first time in nearly a year, while still remaining above the total of the first week of November 2022.
In a prepared statement, DOL Commissioner Dante Bartolomeo noted hiring remains strong despite continuing challenges for many businesses.
“Private sector employment is at an all-time high and the unemployment rate is near a pre-pandemic low,” Bartolomeo stated in comments accompanying DOL’s October jobs report. “With supply chain interruptions, inflation, a tight labor market, and other barriers, pandemic recovery was a hard-fought battle for employers and the workforce. I commend Gov. (Ned) Lamont, the legislature, and the business community for successfully navigating these unprecedented challenges and getting us to full recovery. We have more work to do, but we’re on the right path.”
Since August, more Connecticut workers have been staying put in their jobs, with just 33,000 people quitting in August according to the most recent U.S. Department of Labor estimates. That compared to 48,000 taking better opportunities or time off otherwise in August 2022; only New York, Massachusetts and California had lower rates of people walking away from jobs they held in August.
That has occurred despite an accelerating drop in total online job postings in October. The Conference Board counted just over 66,000 Connecticut openings posted online in October, about 7,800 fewer than in September for a 12 percent decline.
But employers have been boosting pay to keep workers and land new ones. Of 2,000 Connecticut jobs hitting the Indeed career board over a 24 hour span through Thursday morning, 60 percent of those openings offered annualized pay of $60,000 or more.
In Connecticut, the health sector continues to have the highest demand, with more than 12,000 openings in October dominated by Hartford HealthCare and Yale New Haven Health, followed by retail with close to 8,000 openings. More than a quarter of those openings were at five retailers in CVS, Target, TJX, Walgreens, Walmart and Home Depot.
Speaking Tuesday on a conference call, Home Depot’s CEO said pay increases this year have had the intended effect of keeping workers in the fold. The company had more than 200 openings across 30 stores in Connecticut as of Wednesday.
“The wage investments are paying off,” said Home Depot CEO Ted Decker, speaking Tuesday on a conference call. “Our attrition is way down.”
Includes prior reporting by Liese Klein, Paul Schott and Luther Turmelle.
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