May 26, 2020
Greater Worcester unemployment hits 14.4%
Photo | Grant Welker
Downtown Leominster
By Grant Welker
The Worcester area labor force shrunk by one-tenth in April as the coronavirus pandemic and related business closures forced the area's unemployment rate to 14.4%, according to government data released Tuesday.
The April numbers were not unexpected: the national unemployment rate hit 14.7% for the month, and then Massachusetts hit 15.1%. But they still show how quickly the pandemic has undone years of employment growth, which brought the unemployment rate in the Worcester metropolitan area to a near all-time low of 3.1% in March.
In just one month's time, the labor force fell by 10%, losing 36,583 people who were either employed or actively looking for work. The ranks of the unemployed more than tripled, from 11,400 in March to 46,829 in April.
Some communities have been hit especially hard. Worcester city's unemployment rate jumped to 16.4% from 3.2%, with roughly 11,000 more city residents claiming unemployment. Fitchburg's rate rose to 19.1% from 4.3%, and Southbridge hit 20.3% from 4.1%.
The numbers, which are not seasonally adjusted, were released Tuesday by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development, showing no region of the state untouched.
The Boston metro area's unemployment rate hit 15.4%, and its unemployment ranks spiked fivefold to 208,915. The Framingham region of the Boston metro area saw its unemployment rate jump to 13.1% from 2.4% a month prior.
The Worcester metro area, which includes Worcester County and Connecticut's Windham County, was among the state's better performers despite the dismal numbers.
The New Bedford area's unemployment rate spiked to 21.9%, and the Lawrence area's unemployment rate hit 21.7%. The Providence metro area went to 20.0%, and the Barnstable area on Cape Cod rose to 21.1%.
The Athol micropolitan area, which covers a slice of northern Worcester County, had a rate of 16.8%.
Economic trends were already moving in the wrong direction in key workforce areas in the Worcester metro area even before the pandemic hit.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' monthly report for the Worcester metropolitan area shows employment growth in March dropping to among the lowest levels in the past three years, with a 0.4% 12-month change. The Worcester metro area has trailed the national rate for employment growth for every quarter in the last three years.
An employment and growth index for the first quarter showed a 1.6% decline despite only capturing the first few weeks of pandemic-related closures. The Worcester Economic Index, which weighs employment, unemployment and new business corporations, likely underestimates the hit the area will take during the pandemic, index creator Thomas White, an Assumption College economics professor, said in April. It was clear the economy was already headed toward a recession by the end of March, with declines in January and February, White said then.
Other sources have also shown how much the area's business community has been decimated by the outbreak.
A team of researchers led by Harvard University using online commercial transactions, work schedules and other data reported in mid-May that 47.9% of Worcester County businesses closed entirely during the pandemic. Hours worked by those employed by small businesses are down 71%, and revenue at such businesses is down 42.6% compared to January, the researchers found.
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