AUGUSTA, Maine — Maine’s estimated unemployment rate continued to slide downward, according to data from September released Tuesday by the Maine Department of Labor.
Labor Commissioner Jeanne Paquette announced that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate estimate for September — the most recent month for which data are available — was 4.4 percent. That’s slightly lower than 4.5 percent in August and down from 5.6 percent a year ago. That puts the state’s unemployment rate at its lowest since April 2006.
The unemployment rate is calculated from the difference between employment and the labor force estimates, divided by the labor force estimate. Maine’s labor force remains estimated at a lower level than at the pit of the recession, in late 2009, when employment bottomed out and the jobless rate hit 8.3 percent.
Maine is faring better than the national September unemployment rate of 5.1 percent, which was also falling. A year ago, the national rate was 5.9 percent.
Maine also ranked near the middle of New England states, which had an average unemployment rate of 4.6 percent. Rates for the other New England states were 3.4 percent in New Hampshire, 3.7 percent in Vermont, 4.6 percent in Massachusetts, 5.4 percent in Rhode Island and 5.2 percent in Connecticut.
The number of nonfarm payroll jobs is also climbing in Maine. The Department of Labor estimates that there were more than 611,000 jobs in August, up roughly 5,800 since August 2014. The largest job gains were in the professional and business services, finance, retail and health care sectors.
BDN economics writer Darren Fishell contributed to this report.
