Greater Worcester unemployment dropped in March for first time in six months
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Unemployment dipped in Greater Worcester in March to 5.1%.
Unemployment in Greater Worcester trended downward in March for the first time since September.
The region’s seasonally unadjusted employment rate fell 0.1 percentage points from 5.2% in February to 5.1%.
While Greater Worcester experienced its first drop in unemployment in six months, last month’s rate was still 1.1 percentage points higher than in March 2024 when unemployment sat at 4.0%. It was also 0.1 percentage points higher than the state’s unadjusted rate of 5.0%, according to the data released Tuesday by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development, using information from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The region saw a slight dip in its labor force in March, losing 1,129 individuals to a total of 473,057, with 448,710 employed and 24,347 unemployed.
Unlike in previous years, the EOLWD has consolidated its labor market distinctions to reflect the new delineations based on the 2020 Census, according to the BLS. Therefore, only Greater Worcester’s isolated statistics are provided, while Framingham’s are combined with other Middlesex County communities. Athol and Leominster-Gardner are now omitted.
Greater Framingham saw its unemployment rate hold steady in March with its rate remaining at the same 4.5% from February. Unlike Greater Worcester, Greater Framingham experienced an increase in its labor force last month, adding 1,294 residents to a total of 1.41 million. The region had 1.34 million individuals employed and 63,597 unemployed.
For the third consecutive month, Greater Framingham tied for the lowest unemployment rate of the 12 Massachusetts metro areas analyzed by the BLS, along with the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH metro area.
The Nantucket micropolitan area experienced by far the highest unemployment in the state, experiencing a rate of 14.6% in March.
Mica Kanner-Mascolo is a staff writer at Worcester Business Journal, who primarily covers the healthcare and diversity, equity, and inclusion industries.
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