Fairfield County appeared to add about 2,600 jobs between May and June, easily eclipsing job growth in the rest of Connecticut.
Unemployment in lower Fairfield County stood at 8.2 percent in June, according to the Connecticut Department of Labor, while in the Danbury area the jobless rate was 7.3 percent, the lowest in the state.
The financial services sector, a key component of the Fairfield County economy, was off 0.8 percent statewide.
The state added jobs for a sixth consecutive month in June, though at a 500 gain it was the smallest monthly increase since February. Connecticut”™s unemployment rate dipped a basis point to 8.8 percent, compared to a national unemployment rate of 9.5 percent.
In New York, where unemployment was 8.2 percent, the Empire State Manufacturing Survey published in mid-July by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York suggested the pace of business activity slowed substantially.
In Connecticut, manufacturers added an estimated 700 jobs in June, and are up 2,800 jobs since January.
“The pace of growth is not yet anywhere nearly as fast as we would like to see, but since January it has consistently been headed in the right direction and our state has added 13,500 jobs since hitting rock bottom in December,” said Gov. M. Jodi Rell, in a prepared statement.
Statewide, the education and health services sector posted the biggest gain at 2,400 jobs on a month over month basis, while government had the steepest decline at 3,500 jobs due in part to U.S. Census workers completing their temporary jobs.
Despite the summer months typically being a busy season for construction, that sector”™s jobs count dropped 2.7 percent from May. The U.S. Department of Commerce said housing starts nationally fell 5 percent in June, but permit activity increased, potentially boding well for future construction activity if those projects break ground.
“Connecticut”™s pace of job growth fell off in June as federal Census employment decreased, but we saw some good growth in private sector employment,” said Salvatore DiPillo, statistics supervisor in the Connecticut Department of Labor, in a prepared statement. “And, many of our other indicators ”“ the unemployment rate, new claims for unemployment benefits, and the average workweek for all employees and manufacturing production workers ”“ showed improvement, however slight, giving some promise to the prospect for a better state economic condition.”
Federal stimulus funding created or saved an estimated 206,000 jobs in New York and 38,000 more in Connecticut as of the second quarter, according to a report published by the president”™s Council of Economic Advisors. Nationally, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act may have created between 2.5 million and 3.6 million jobs.
In calculating the jobs impact of ARRA, the Council of Economic Advisors stated any such analysis is difficult given the lack of knowledge about how the economy would have evolved without the stimulus in place.
Still, CEA indicated the magnitude of the fiscal stimulus increased substantially in the first quarter, and has increased further in the second quarter ”“ from $80 billion in the fourth quarter last year, to $108 billion in this year”™s first quarter and $116 billion in the second.
Gross domestic product began to grow steadily starting in the third quarter of 2009, and private payroll employment has increased by nearly 600,000 since its low point in December 2009.