New England jobless rate rises to 7.1%

By PBN Staff
Twitter: @ProvBusNews

WASHINGTON – New England’s unemployment rate rose 0.3 percentage points from June to July to 7.1 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced Friday.

Year over year, New England’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dropped 0.7 percentage points from 7.8 percent in July 2011. Nationally, the unemployment rate fell 0.8 percentage points year over year to 8.3 percent.

Rhode Island’s unemployment rate dropped 0.1 percentage points from 10.9 percent in June to 10.8 percent in July but declined 0.6 percentage points year over year from the July 2011 jobless numbers.

Year-over-year, Massachusetts’ unemployment rate fell 1.3 percentage points to 6.1 percent in July, down from 7.4 percent during the same period in 2011.

The Ocean State had the highest jobless rate among the New England states and the second-highest jobless rate in the nation – behind Nevada at 12 percent.

Rhode Island saw the largest year-over-year percentage decrease in employment with a loss of 1.6 percent. Comparatively, Wisconsin, which saw the second-highest job loss in July, lost 0.8 percent of jobs.