Newsletter Sign-up
MERC Report: Unemployment Rates Higher in MetroWest
Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 2010-02-18 10:14
The MetroWest Economic Research Center (MERC) at Framingham State College collects and records unemployment rates and labor force data every month for MetroWest (MW), which consists of Ashland, Holliston, Hopkinton, Framingham, Natick, Sherborn, Southborough, Sudbury, and Wayland.
In September 2009 the MetroWest unemployment rate stood at 7.3%, lower than the 9.3% unemployment rate for Massachusetts and the 9.5% unemployment rate for the nation. One year earlier in September 2008, the unemployment rates for MetroWest, Massachusetts and the U.S. were 4.2%, 5.6% and 6.0% respectively.
Among the MetroWest communities in September 2009, Ashland displayed the highest unemployment rate, 7.8%, while Hopkinton displayed the lowest, 6.7%, showing a 1.1% spread among all unemployment rates in the nine communities in the region.
As shown in Graph 1 (page 1) all communities in MetroWest posted higher unemployment rates in September 2009 than in September 2008. The unemployment rate in Sherborn more than doubled, from 3.6% in September 2008 to 7.4% in September 2009, an increase of 3.8%, the largest increase in MetroWest. The second largest increase in the unemployment rates in MetroWest was posted by Holliston, up by 3.7% from 3.9% in September 2008 to 7.6% in September 2009. Ashland consistently posted the highest unemployment rate among the communities in the region, with 4.7% in September 2008 and 7.8% in September 2009. In both September 2008 and September 2009, all communities in MetroWest posted lower unemployment rates than both the state and the nation.
Graph 2 (below) shows the number of individuals in the labor force, measured on the left hand of the axis (shown in blue), and the number of individuals unemployed, measured on the right hand of the axis (shown in red), from January 1990 to September 2009 in MetroWest. The number of unemployed reached its peak in September 2009, at 7,471 individuals. This was the highest number of unemployed individuals in MetroWest since February 1992, when the value was recorded at 7,008. The labor force reached its lowest number, 95,041 individuals, in September 1992. Since then, the labor force showed an increasing trend until it reached the highest number, 106,757 individuals, in July 1999.
In the MetroWest region, the total labor force in September 2009 was 102,605 individuals, an increase of only 200 from the same month in the previous year. As shown in Graph 3 (page 10), among the nine communities in the MetroWest region, Framingham contributed most to the total labor force. with 36%, or about 37,000 individuals. The second largest contributor to the labor force was Natick, with 18.4%, or approximately 18,900 individuals. It is interesting to note that the combined labor force of Framingham and Natick, the top two contributors to the regional labor force, provided over half, or 54.4% of the total labor force in MetroWest. Sherborn provided the smallest contribution to the labor force in the region, with only 1.9% of the total, or roughly 2,000 individuals.
Graph 4 shows the total number of jobs in comparison to the total labor force in MetroWest from 1990 to 2008. The total number of jobs refers to jobs located in local MetroWest establishments, while the total labor force is defined as all civilian non-institutionalized residents of the region, age 16 and over, who are either employed or unemployed. In the period from 1990 to 1999, the number of individuals in the labor force was greater than the total number of jobs in MetroWest, implying that the region was a net exporter of labor during this period. However, from 2000 until 2008, MetroWest became a net importer of labor, as the total number of jobs exceeded the number of individuals in the labor force during this period. In 1993, the largest difference between the number of jobs and the labor force was observed, when there were 15,797 more individuals in the labor force than total number of jobs. The smallest gap between the number of jobs and the labor force was recorded in 2000, when there were only 794 more jobs than there were individuals in the labor force.
For more information on unemployment in MetroWest, come to the annual MERC Conference on the local economy on Friday, May 7, 2010 at 8 a.m. More details on the event will be on the MERC website in early spring.
Melissa Zardeskas, MERC Intern II
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Graph 2 JF 10.jpg | 985.73 KB |
| Graph 3 JF 10.jpg | 518.83 KB |
| Graph 4 JF 10.jpg | 870.58 KB |
Back to Recent News
