The Maine Department of Labor (MDOL) released the state’s July employment numbers Friday, revealing that while Maine’s unemployment rate is low, workforce participation remains well below that of similar states.
The seasonally-adjusted unemployment for July was preliminarily calculated at 2.8 percent while the labor force participation rate came in at 59.8 percent.
Unemployment remained unchanged from June, and labor force participation increased by .2 percent from 59.6 percent.
Seasonal adjustment is a statistical technique that is regularly employed to remove the influences of “predictable seasonal patterns” in order to reveal a more accurate measure of how the employment situation has evolved over time.
[RELATED: Maine Continues to See Low Unemployment But Low Labor Force Participation: June MDOL Report]
Maine’s unemployment rate was also 2.8 percent in July of last year, and labor force participation was 59.3 percent.
The state’s three-month average unemployment was calculated at 2.9 percent, or .4 percent less than the previous three-month period from February to April.
Unemployment nationwide in July of last year came in at 3.5 percent, but this spiked to 4.3 percent last month. New England’s unemployment rate for July 2024 was calculated to be 3.4 percent.
For the past 32 months, Maine’s unemployment rate has remained below four percent, and for all but two months of the past sixteen years, it has been below the national average.
Maine’s labor force participation, however, is significantly lower than the rate nationwide, as well as in comparison to other demographically similar states.
The labor force participation rate nationwide in July of this year was found to be 62.7 percent. This is nearly identical to the rate at this same time last year, which was calculated to be 62.6 percent.
Workforce participation rates are representative of the proportion of working-age individuals who are either employed or actively searching for work.
Although there are a number of different ways to calculate the labor force participation rate, the MDOL arrives at its statistics by considering all individuals over the age of 16. Consequently, retirees and other elderly individuals are included in these numbers.
As a result of this, it can be more complicated to parse these statistics, particularly given Maine’s aging population.
Looking at states with a similar average age, however, reveals that there is likely more to the story in Maine than simply an older-than-average population.
While Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont all have a similar median age, New Hampshire and Vermont have significantly higher rates of labor force participation this month – at 66.2 percent and 66.5 percent respectively.
The MDOL cautions in their press release that their figures are “preliminary” and therefore “should be considered in the context of whether they are below, near, or above historical or U.S. averages, rather than if they are up or down a few tenths of a point from some other month.”
Of course unemployment is low. Just hired 21 visiting south Americans to fill jobs that normally would be offered to locals. Thanks Janet, Joe and Kamletoe.
As someone who was once unemployed, once I reached the end of unemployment benefits, I was no longer listed among the unemployed even though i didn’t have a job. The unemployment numbers are meaningless.
have to wonder, with all the work available, what percentage of those unemployed are just there to collect