
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) the unemployment rate for Massachusetts declined 0.2 percentage points (pp) to 6.5% in February. The state unemployment rate has not been this low since 2008. It is 1.1 pp below the national unemployment rate of 7.6%. Bay State employment grew by 57,600 jobs year-over-year with a concentration in the Professional and Business Services sectors as well as Health Care and Education sectors. Most of the annual growth, however, came from Construction jobs driven by the rise in development projects this year. The unemployment rate in the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy metro area has been on the rise since late 2012. It grew 0.9 pp since November to 6.5% in January, but remains below last year’s rate of 6.8%. When isolating the city of Cambridge, the BLS reports a lower unemployment rate of 4.2%.
Source : Cushman & Wakefield