Maine’s Labor Commissioner Jeanne Paquette released March workforce estimates for Maine April 21. The preliminary seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 4.8 percent for March was down from 5.0 percent in February and 5.8 percent one year ago. The number of unemployed declined 7,800 over the year to 32,100. The unemployment rate was the lowest since February 2008.

The employment to population ratio estimate of 60.1 percent remained above the U.S. average (59.3 percent) for the 90th consecutive month.

The U.S. preliminary unemployment rate of 5.5 percent was unchanged from February and down from 6.6 percent one year ago. The New England unemployment rate averaged 5.2 percent. Rates for other states were 3.9 percent in New Hampshire, 3.8 percent in Vermont, 4.8 percent in Massachusetts, 6.3 percent in Rhode Island, and 6.4 percent in Connecticut.

The preliminary nonfarm payroll jobs estimate for February of 605,900 was up 2,300 from one year ago. Private sector jobs were up 2,800 and government was down 500. The largest job gains were in the education and healthcare and the professional and business services sectors.

See more data about nonfarm payroll jobs here.

The not seasonally adjusted statewide unemployment rate was 5.6 percent in March, down from 6.7 percent one year ago. Not seasonally adjusted rates ranged from 4.2 percent in Cumberland County to 9.5 percent in Washington County. Rates tended to be lower than the statewide average in southern and central counties and higher than average in northern and rim counties.

The unemployment rate was below the statewide average in all three metro areas: Portland-South Portland (4.4 percent), Lewiston-Auburn (5.3 percent) and Bangor (5.2 percent).

April data will be released Wednesday, May 27 (Data Release Schedule).

NOTES:

1. Preliminary labor force estimates, including unemployment and employment to population ratios for Maine tend to move in a direction for several months and then reverse course. Those directional trends are largely driven by a smoothing procedure and may not indicate a change in underlying workforce conditions. Annual revisions (to be published in March 2016) will moderate or eliminate those directional patterns. A comparison of preliminary and annually revised unemployment rates is available at http://cwri.blogspot.com/2014/03/workforce-data-revisions-part-1.html.

2. Nonfarm payroll jobs estimates tend to be volatile from month to month. Users should look to the trend over multiple months rather than the change from one specific month to another. Estimates for the period from October 2014 to September 2015 will be replaced with actual payroll data in March 2016. Those benchmark revisions are likely to show less volatility than preliminary estimates.