AUGUSTA, Maine — Driven in part by strong jobs data in Maine’s urban centers, the state’s estimated unemployment rate fell to 5.7 percent in the month of April, Labor Commissioner Jeanne Paquette announced Friday.
According to the Maine Department of Labor, that’s the lowest unemployment rate the state has seen since September 2008, and the employment-to-population ratio held steady at the highest point it has been since November 2008.
Helping anchor that low number included unemployment rates of 4.6 percent in the Portland-South Portland-Biddeford metropolitan area, 5.5 percent in Lewiston-Auburn and 5.7 percent in Bangor.
In a statement released Friday by Gov. Paul LePage, the Republican credited his administration’s welfare-to-work initiatives for helping push down unemployment.
“Thousands more people are working in the private sector now than when I took office,” said LePage in a statement. “But we must continue our efforts to transform Maine from a high-tax state with a large welfare population to a low-tax, business-friendly state that encourages companies to create good-paying career jobs for Maine families.”
The 5.7 percent estimated seasonally adjusted unemployment rate statewide continued inching downward from a March figure of 5.9 percent, and it represents a more significant fall from the 6.8 percent seen in Maine one year earlier, during April 2013.
The state’s unemployment rate continues to best the nationwide rate as well, with the country reportedly dropping to 6.3 percent in April, its own low since the 2008 bankruptcy of $600 billion finance firm Lehman Brothers, a collapse seen as a major contributor to the subsequent economic recession.
The estimated Maine unemployment rate for April placed the state third in New England, where Vermont claimed a 3.3 percent rate, and New Hampshire recorded a rate of 4.4 percent.
New England’s other three states reported unemployment rates of 6 percent or higher, with Rhode Island showing a regional high of 8.3 percent.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the number of unemployed people in Maine has fallen by about 7,400 people since last April to about 40,500 in April 2014.
The share of the Maine population that is employed held steady at 61.8 percent in April, staying ahead of the U.S. average — 58.9 percent — for a 79th consecutive month, Paquette’s office announced Friday.
Democrats pointed to information indicating that some Mainers have abandoned job searches as a contributing factor to the lower unemployment rate.
“Maine families continue to struggle with our state ranking in the back of the pack nationally for job growth,” said House Speaker Mark Eves, D-North Berwick, in a prepared statement. “While the unemployment rate declined, the story behind this month’s drop is that more struggling Mainers have stopped looking for work, particularly prime working age Mainers.”
The non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for Maine in April was 5.9 percent, with numbers ranging from 4.5 percent in Cumberland County to 10 percent in Washington County.
