Spotlight/economy: Why unemployment is so low

One of the benefits of today’s tight job market is that workers who want a job generally can find one.

As the region’s labor force has shrunk over the past few decades, the slack in the job market has disappeared. The Covid pandemic, which pushed many older workers into early retirement, only accelerated the trend.

As the economy has rebounded, desperate employers have been hiring workers they may not have considered just a few years ago. Some local employers, including some health care facilities, even are making accommodations to help employees who don’t have a car get to jobs that aren’t easily accessible by bus.

As a result, the number of people who are classified as unemployed – those who are actively looking for a job but can’t find one – has dropped to its lowest level in more than three decades, according to the State Labor Department.

That decline, coupled with the shrinking labor force, has pushed the region’s unemployment rate down to levels not seen since as far back as the state’s records go in 1990 – and probably much longer than that.