Greater Worcester unemployment rose in July to 6%
Courtesy | Kaycha Labs
A Kaycha Labs employee operates testing equipment. Employment in Worcester County's biopharma industry increased 7.9% last year, according to MassBio.
The number of unemployed workers in the Worcester metropolitan area took a slight uptick in July, but still remains almost half of what it was this time last year, according to the latest report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released Wednesday.
The percent of the labor force unemployed in the region increased 0.3 percentage points from June to July, rising to 6% from 5.7%. That’s still significantly lower than July 2020, when 10% of the Greater Worcester labor force was unemployed.
In July, 21,036 Worcester-area workers were unemployed, 1,116 more than June. In 2020, the number of unemployed decreased by 14,423 people from June to July.
Worcester’s civilian labor force, which includes both employed and unemployed people, gained 3,000 workers this month. The 353,359-person labor force is now roughly 10,000 people larger than it was in July 2020.
Statewide trends were similar to the Worcester region. Massachusetts’ unemployed percent of the labor force also increased by 0.3 percentage points to 5.7% in July from 5.4% in June, a little lower than the Worcester rate. In July 2020, 10.1% of the state’s labor force was unemployed.
About 10,000 more people were unemployed in July than they were in June, bringing the state’s unemployment number to 212,126. That’s still 152,804 fewer unemployed than last July in Massachusetts.
The state’s civilian labor force remained in the 3.7 million range through June and July of this year and in 2020, and now stands at 3,750,975.
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