Less Than 60% of Eligible Maine Workers Have Jobs: MDOL Report

Maine’s August unemployment rate and labor force participation rate remained largely unchanged in comparison to recent months, according to the Maine Department of Labor’s (MDOL) Friday press release.

For the third month in row, the state’s seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate has been calculated at 2.8 percent, while labor force participation came in at 59.9 percent.

Nationwide, unemployment for August came in at 4.2 percent with a labor force participation rate of 62.7 percent. Unemployment for New England was calculated at 4.2 percent.

Seasonal adjustment is a statistical technique that is regularly employed to remove the influences of “predictable seasonal patterns” in order to reveal a more accurate measure of how the employment situation has evolved over time.

In August of last year, unemployment was at 3 percent and labor force participation was at 59.4 percent.

The state’s three-month average unemployment rate for June through August came in at 2.8 percent, a .3 percent decrease compared to the previous three-month average of 3.1 percent.

The three-month average for labor force participation has also moved in a slightly positive direction, increasing from 59.4 percent in March through May to 59.8 percent in June through August.

[RELATED: July Unemployment Remains Low, Workforce Participation Below National Average — MDOL Report]

For the past 33 months, Maine’s unemployment rate has remained below four percent, and for all but two months of the past sixteen years, it has been below the national average.

Maine’s labor force participation, however, is significantly lower than the rate nationwide, as well as in comparison to other demographically similar states.

Labor force participation rates are representative of the proportion of working-age individuals who are either employed or actively searching for work.

Although there are a number of different ways to calculate the labor force participation rate, the MDOL arrives at its statistics by considering all individuals over the age of 16. Consequently, retirees and other elderly individuals are included in these numbers.

As a result of this, it can be more complicated to parse these statistics, particularly given Maine’s aging population.

Looking at states with a similar average age, however, reveals that there is likely more to the story in Maine than simply an older-than-average population.

While Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont all have a similar median age, New Hampshire and Vermont have significantly higher rates of labor force participation this month – at 66.5 percent and 66.1 percent respectively.

The MDOL cautions in their press release that their figures are “preliminary” and therefore “should be considered in the context of whether they are below, near, or above historical or U.S. averages, rather than if they are up or down a few tenths of a point from some other month.”