The Massachusetts unemployment rate dropped from 3.6 percent to 3.5 percent over the course of the month of December, remaining below the national rate of 4.1 percent.
Despite the decrease in the unemployment rate, the state lost 500 jobs in the same month, according to a press release from the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated the private sector lost 200 jobs, while increases arose in construction, manufacturing, leisure and hospitality, and financial activities.
Rosalin Acosta, the secretary for the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development, said in the release that the Commonwealth added 63,000 jobs and over 64,000 additional working residents in the labor force in 2017.
“While much of these job gains continue to be in sectors like Professional, Business, and Scientific Services, Manufacturing also posted a preliminary 2,800 over the year job gain, the first over the year over job gain in that sector in 18 years,” Acosta said in the release.
Charles Pearce, the director of communications at the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development, said it should be noted these statistics are precursory numbers.
“The … number of jobs throughout 2017 actually increased with December’s report, but these are all preliminary numbers for 2017,” Pearce said. “Over the next few month the Bureau of Labor Statistics is benchmarking all of their numbers for 2017 and then they’ll be releasing in March an updated benchmarking final report both for the unemployment and the job numbers.”
Pearce said the increased size of the labor force is calculated by the number of jobs in the state of Massachusetts, but that number can change as more information is received.
Drops and increases in unemployment aren’t just reflective of people who had lost their jobs, as the rate also includes those who are newly seeking work, Pearce said.
“To be classified as unemployed, you could be not working, but also actively seeking work,” Pearce said. “The unemployment rate could drop, for example, as more people begin to stop seeking work or to retire, and that could potentially bring that down.”
Pearce said the apparent discrepancy between the decrease in unemployment and a loss in jobs is because both statistics are done in two different studies.
Labor force is calculated through a survey of households across the state, Kevin Lang, an economics professor at Boston University, wrote in an email. Because the sample size isn’t large, the data is not very precise month-to-month.
Lang wrote the unemployment rate most likely fell due to a fewer number of people looking for jobs. Other reasons include people becoming discouraged from not finding jobs and therefore stopping to look, an increased amount of people retiring, and people in the state choosing to stop working, whether it’s to have a family or to go to school.
Several Boston residents said the loss in jobs has been evident in their day-to-day lives.
Robert Mosocoso, 28, of Fenway, said the job losses could be due to the rise of the complexity of technology.
“There’s a certain [skill] level that people don’t need to do that job anymore because they are being taken over by technology,” Mosocoso said. “I think that’s probably part of the problem but could be good in the long term.”
Joseph Ramsey, 30, of Roxbury, said higher education has become a requirement for more and more jobs, and due to this, low-level jobs have been cut.
“Jobs that most people could get, like being a secretary or janitorial staff,” Ramsey said. “Before, you can have a high school diploma and get a job and now, you need more.”
Helena Newman, 24, of Fenway, said she has seen the lower unemployment rate at work, comparing her struggles of getting a job when she was in college to now.
“I went to a professional school where you had to work during the semester and then go to school at night,” Newman said. “Compared to back in the day, a lot more students have jobs and are able to find jobs even if its temporary at the moment. For me, it looks like it’s getting better.”
Sarika Ram and Solange Hackshaw contributed to the reporting of this article.
