BOSTON – New England saw notable employment growth in May 2023, adding 11,600 jobs during the month and continuing to exceed its pre-pandemic employment benchmark, according to a report issued Friday by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
Unemployment in the region was 3% in May 2023, which was below the national rate of 3.7% and represents a year-over-year decline of half a percentage point, according to the Boston Fed. Rhode Island’s unemployment rate remained steady at 3% year-over-year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statics data used to compile the report.
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Inflation had less of an impact in New England than other regions of the nation. Year-over-year price growth for May 2023 was slower in New England at 2.4% compared with the United States overall 4%. Price growth in the region was driven by rising food and shelter prices, as all other product categories experienced a decline.
House prices continued to rise year-over-year in the region, with the highest rates of increase in Maine and Vermont and at the lowest rate in Massachusetts in the first quarter of 2023. In addition to this disparity between the north and south of the region, the rise in housing costs varied notably within states. For instance, increases in Maine’s metropolitan areas differed by more than 10%, ranging from a low of 4.9% in Lewiston-Auburn to a rocketing 15.1% in Bangor, according to the Boston Fed’s report.
Consumer confidence in New England was a bit higher than the rest of the nation in June – and the best that it’s been in six months – at 111.3 in the region compared to 109.7 nationally.
In other data, job growth in the leisure and hospitality sector is still recovering from the pandemic. Employment in the sector remained 5.7% below its February 2020 level, but over the past year, leisure and hospitality has helped drive overall employment growth in New England.
