PORTLAND, Maine — Maine’s unemployment rate remained at 5.8 percent in October, equal to what it was in September but down from 6.5 percent one year ago, when an estimated 5,300 more job seekers couldn’t find work.
The preliminary estimates put Maine’s unemployment rate even with the nation’s, which dropped from 5.9 percent in September to 5.8 percent in October.
During the last few months, estimates of Maine’s jobless rate have risen, which economist Glenn Mills, with the state’s Center for Workforce Research and Information, said is a product of the estimation method that causes unemployment figures to move in one direction for a matter of months and then change direction.
“Our analysts advise that recent household survey estimates continue to correct from unusually favorable estimates earlier in the year,” Mills wrote in his monthly release of the unemployment numbers.
That number dipped as low as 5.5 percent early in the summer and started to move up in August. Later revisions of those numbers will show smoother increases or declines.
Maine’s October rate was lower than the New England average of 5.9 percent. It was higher than in New Hampshire (4.2 percent) and Vermont (4.4 percent), and lower than in Massachusetts (6.0 percent), Connecticut (6.4 percent) and Rhode Island (7.4 percent).
Job estimates fluctuate similarly month to month. But year-over-year estimates show Maine’s economy has regained about 5,000 nonfarm payroll jobs since last October, an increase driven mostly by the private sector as government jobs have declined.
Unemployment rates not seasonally adjusted remained highest in Piscataquis and Washington counties, at 7.2 percent, and lowest in Cumberland and York counties, at 4.1 percent and 4.2 percent, respectively.
That unadjusted rate of 5.2 percent in the Bangor area was higher than the statewide average of 5.1 percent, compared to 4.1 percent in the Portland-South Portland metropolitan area and 4.8 percent in the Lewiston-Auburn area.