The Massachusetts economy added jobs in September, but the state’s unemployment rate inched up. WAMC”s Paul Tuthill reports.
Massachusetts gained 5100 jobs in September, and the unemployment rate crept up two tenths of a point to 6.5 percent. The Massachusetts Office of Labor and Workforce Development said the different trends can be explained by how the data is obtained. The unemployment rate is based on a survey of households, while the estimated number of jobs gained, or lost, comes from a survey of employers. The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics revised downward its earlier estimate of job losses in Massachusetts in August from 4800 to 3500.