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BOSTON (State House News Service) — Total employment in Massachusetts rebounded to pre-pandemic levels in January, 34 months after the COVID-19 state of emergency began, as employers added a robust 19,600 jobs.
The January gains brought the statewide employment to 3,743,500, labor officials announced Friday. That's just 200 positions short of the total recorded in February 2020, the last month before a cascade of enormous job losses followed by a jobs recovery.
The industry with the biggest growth was education and health services, which employed 5,000 more people month-over-month. Other sectors with gains include trade, transportation and utilities (+3,200 jobs), leisure and hospitality (+3,000 jobs), and professional, scientific and business services (+2,300 jobs).
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None of the industry categories tracked reported a net decrease in jobs in January; financial activities experienced no change.
Officials on Friday also revised December's labor data to show an increase of 3,800 jobs, down from the original estimate of 6,300.
The revision bumped up the statewide unemployment rate in December from 3.3 percent to 3.7 percent, and officials said that figure fell to 3.6 percent in January. Massachusetts had a slightly higher unemployment rate in January than the 3.4 percent reported for the country as a whole that month.
Written by Chris Lisinski/SHNS
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