| Jobless rate jumps to 5.7 percent in Massachusetts for March 2003 |
![]() |
![]() |
| 已发布 on 2003-04-26 11:29:22 EST |
![]() |
The state Division of Employment and Training reported yesterday that the jobless rate rose 0.3 percentage points from February's revised 5.4 percent as Massachusetts shed another 6,100 jobs - the eighth consecutive month of job losses. All told, the state has lost nearly 168,000 jobs since employment peaked in January 2001.
''The drumbeat goes on,'' said Frederick Breimyer, chief economist at State Street Corp. in Boston. ''Massachusetts is in recession. It's a continuing recession, and it's not clear when we're going to get out.''
To many economists, yesterday's report was particularly grim because job losses that had been concentrated in hard-hit manufacturing and technology industries spread to other sectors that have helped to hold up the state's battered economy. The education and health care sector, the only one to post any meaningful job gains over the past year, lost 1,700 jobs in March.
Trade, transportation, and utilities, which had added 5,200 jobs in three previous months, sustained 500 job losses in March. Construction employment fell by 3,300 - more than half the month's job losses - which economists blamed on poor weather, a softening housing market, and the winding down of the Central Artery construction project.
''The fact that these are weakening is not good news,'' said Andrew Sum, director of Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies.
The continued erosion of the state's job market reflected national trends that saw the US economy lose about 100,000 jobs in March and the national unemployment rate rise to 5.8 percent. In addition, the Commerce Department reported yesterday, the US economy, buffeted by war worries, grew at an annual rate of just 1.6 percent in the first quarter - technically avoiding a recession, but hardly a growth rate sufficient to stem job losses.
The stock market fell in response, with the Dow Jones industrial average losing 133.69 points, or 1.6 percent, to close at 8,306.35.
The weakness in the national economy is probably weighing particularly heavily on Massachusetts because of its concentration of companies, especially technology and manufacturing, that export products and services to other parts of the country, said Andre Mayer, senior vice president of research at Associated Industries of Massachusetts. Ultimately, economists agreed, far more vigorous national economic growth is needed to pull the state from a recession that now, in terms of job losses, ranks as the second-worst in the post-World War II era. Only the downturn of the early 1990s was more severe.
Economists expect the job losses to continue in coming months as the financial services sector feels the impact of 1,800 job cuts, mostly in Massachusetts, announced earlier this month by State Street Corp., and as state and local budget shortfalls lead to job losses in the government sector.
''I don't see any positive signs,'' Mayer said.
The continuing job losses yesterday prompted Secretary of State William F. Galvin to propose legislation that would exempt newly incorporated businesses with at least three full-time employees from the Massachusetts corporate income tax of 9.5 percent for a year. Galvin conceded that the state's ability to influence the economy is limited in the face of national trends, but that it should do something to try to encourage job growth. Among those the proposal might help: laid-off workers trying to start new businesses in the face of poor job prospects.
''If we can provide incentives to create jobs, we should do it,'' Galvin said. ''We're focused on the budget, but it's a jobs problem. The Romney approach of fiscal tweaking is not going to do a thing.''
Karen Grant, a spokeswoman for Governor Mitt Romney, said the administration would gladly take a look at Galvin's proposal, and called on the secretary of state to join Romney in opposing tax proposals scheduled to be debated in the House next week. She added, ''Governor Romney ... has created regional competitive councils across the state that will develop regional job creation plans that will lead our state out of recession.''
Economists, meantime, don't see that happening soon. The sectors that led the state into recession, technology and manufacturing, continue to lose jobs, and until that trend reverses, the state's economy is unlikely to see much improvement. Technology-related sectors lost a combined 1,000 jobs in March, while manufacturing shed another 800 jobs. These sectors have accounted for two-thirds of the state's job losses over the past year, now at 57,600.
But Alan Clayton-Matthews, a public policy professor at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, said that at least some of the numbers should be discounted, because of the weather and worries about the war. He added that there was also some good news in yesterday's report on gross domestic product: investment in computer software and equipment rose 8.4 percent in the first quarter, a sign of improvement for the state's technology sector.
''These numbers are not as bad as they look at first glance,'' he said about the state jobless report. ''These data reflect the uncertainty in March [about the war], and now we're going to have to wait and see.''
|
|
|