Employers in the state of Massachusetts have recently managed to add a total of 1,600 job positions during the month of July. While this was exceptionally good news, the unemployment rate for the state actually went up a bit and is currently at 6.1 percent. The information on the unemployment rate for the state during the month of July was originally provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in a recently released report. It was believed that 2,600 jobs had been lost during the month of June but after revision, it is believed that there were 600 jobs created during that particular month.

The Secretary for the Labor and Workforce Development, Joanne Goldstein, recently said, “These numbers are a snapshot and we always urge people to look at the trends and not the snapshot. The gain was the sixth straight month of growth in the Commonwealth which I think shows we are making steady progress.” For the state, unemployment has not increased since September of 2009 but even though there was an increase in jobs for the state during July, the unemployment rate went up from 6 percent to 6.1 percent. Even with the small increase, the state of Massachusetts is still doing much better than the nation as a whole, as the national unemployment average is currently at about 8.3 percent. Goldstein says, “I don’t think it indicates necessarily that the economy is slowing down. We’re still growing jobs and we’re comfortable that we are continuing to grow in the right direction.”

With many jobs being created, the education and health services sector seemed to do exceptionally well, having added a total of 4,000 jobs during the entire month of July. There were other sectors that also managed to see job growth, including the business services sector and the construction and manufacturing sector. Even the government sector for the state managed to seem some job growth throughout the month. With such increases, employment numbers have been able to improve as well. While some sectors saw improvements, others ended up dealing with some losses. The leisure and hospitality sector was one of those, having lost a total of 1,600 jobs during the last month. The trade and transportation sector also ended up losing a little over 1,000 jobs during the same month. Goldstein says that after finding out about the job losses in leisure and hospitality, she felt confused. She has said, “Leisure and hospitality I fund puzzling.” She also said, “Anecdotally and factually it’s doesn’t seem like it’s slowing down.”