PORTLAND, Maine — The state’s labor department says its job listing website had a record number of openings posted this month, mostly because of an increase in employers looking to hire at job fairs around the state.
The department reported that it has 10,195 open positions advertised at the beginning of April, which was an all-time high.
Julie Rabinowitz, spokeswoman for the department, wrote in an email that the increase in listings is driven by more employers attending job fairs, which are becoming more frequent.
“We have seen a sharp increase in employers at our job fairs, and we have almost doubled the number of job fairs we are doing from 2014 to 2015,” Rabinowitz wrote, noting that employees attending the department’s job fairs are required to register on the job bank site.
And for 2016, she wrote, the department expects to hold more job fairs still. Part of that demand is in response to larger layoffs around the state.
“For example, we have had more than three dozen employers contact us about hiring the Merrymeeting [Behavioral Health Associates] workers,” Rabinowitz wrote, referring to the loss of about 170 jobs with the sudden closure of the Brunswick-based social services agency.
The department said Wednesday that it would hold a job fair from 9 a.m. to noon. Monday at Southern New Hampshire University in Brunswick. The job fair is open to the public.
There are many indications of a tightening job market in the state, including an uptick in wages at the start of 2015 and rising estimates of payroll employment. Initial unemployment filings are also at a 31-year low, Rabinowitz said.
The state’s unemployment rate has dropped primarily because of dropping estimates of Maine’s total workforce, but the Department of Labor’s economist said he puts less faith in the survey-based unemployment estimates than the payroll job figures.
Unemployment estimates were lowest in the southern and coastal parts of the state last year.
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