BLS: New England jobless rate 5.9% in ’14

THE U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS released 2014 unemployment rate data on Wednesday, showing that Rhode Island had the highest jobless rate among the New England states at 7.7 percent. / COURTESY U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS
THE U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS released 2014 unemployment rate data on Wednesday, showing that Rhode Island had the highest jobless rate among the New England states at 7.7 percent. / COURTESY U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS

PROVIDENCE – The average unemployment rate in New England was 5.9 percent last year, 1 percentage point less than 2013’s rate of 6.9 percent, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
New England’s jobless rate also was lower than the national rate of 6.2 percent in 2014.
Rhode Island, however, posted the highest jobless rate in New England at 7.7 percent last year and remained among the highest jobless rates nationwide, the agency said.
In comparison, two other New England states posted jobless rates that were significantly lower than the U.S. rate – Vermont (4.1 percent) and New Hampshire (4.3 percent). Connecticut, Maine and Massachusetts posted rates that were not measurably different from that of the nation at 6.6 percent, 5.7 percent and 5.8 percent, respectively.

Overall, average unemployment rates decreased from 2013 to 2014 in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, marking the first year since 1984 in which all states and the District of Columbia had over-the-year rate declines, the agency said.
In New England, over-the-year rate declines ranged from 1.6 percentage points in Rhode Island, to three-tenths of a percentage point in Vermont.
Connecticut’s unemployment rate declined year over year by 1.1 percentage point, while Maine and Massachusetts both saw their rates fall by nine-tenths of a percentage point, and New Hampshire experienced an eight-tenths of a percentage point decline.
Among the nine geographic divisions, rates in the divisions ranged from a low of 4.6 percent in the West North Central to a high of 7.2 percent in the Pacific last year.

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