Behind Mass. job numbers: No victory, yet
Emphasize the positive. Many times in business, hype can persuade would-be customers to buy. It can work in politics too, getting skeptics to buy in to your point of view or rallying your fans to stick with your cause.
So, with some of that old adage in mind, the Patrick administration this month trumpeted its job-creation numbers for the Bay State for 2013: a healthy gain of more than 55,000 jobs, marking the best year for job growth since 2000. On the surface, a couple of nice talking points for Gov. Deval Patrick, who has been beset by problems in other corners of his administration, such as the backlog of applicants at the state's Health Connector website and the controversy surrounding the Department of Children & Families.
And, of course, it's an election year, and Patrick, like any governor who's about to leave office, would welcome any chance to roll out positive news, both to brandish his legacy and lay the ground for his potential Democratic successor to latch onto. But the numbers tell only a small part of the story.
In that same announcement, the administration said Massachusetts lost 4,500 jobs in January, and the “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate, 6.8 percent, was down only slightly from 6.9 percent in January 2013. So it feels like the Massachusetts part of the recovery is meeting with at least a little resistance. While the job-gain numbers for 2013 are certainly a move in the right direction, the January losses suggest there is no sustainable momentum, at least not now. However, there are trends inside the data that point in the right direction: a gain of 2,900 construction jobs in January and 4,900 since January 2013,and a pickup of 1,600 information-related jobs — 4,100 over the year. Both suggest more business and infrastructure investment, trends with long tails that are critical to sustaining economic growth over the coming year.
We may be back in growth mode, but there has also been some slippage. To quote the famed New England poet, Robert Frost, the Bay State has “miles to go” in this recovery before it sleeps.
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