Jobless rate drops slightly across New England

By PBN Staff
Twitter: @ProvBusNews

WASHINGTON – New England’s unemployment rate remained essentially unchanged in May, dropping to 6.8 percent compared with 6.9 percent in April, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced Friday.

Year-over-year, New England’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dropped 1.1 percentage points from 7.9 percent in May 2011. Nationally, the unemployment rate dropped 0.8 percentage points year-over-year to 8.2 percent.

Rhode Island’s unemployment rate dropped 0.2 percentage points from 11.2 percent in April to 11.0 percent in May and 0.3 percentage points year over year.

Year over year, Massachusetts’ unemployment rate dropped 1.4 percentage points to 6 percent in May 2012, from 7.4 percent during the same 2011 period.

The Ocean State had the highest jobless rate among the New England states, the second-highest jobless rate in the nation – behind Nevada – and saw the largest year-over-year percentage point decrease in employment with a loss of 0.8 percentage points.