CT Mirror23%
CT’s unemployment rate rose to 5.2% in the first half of the year 54%
By P.R. Lockhart64%
7/21/2026, 10:29:59 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 21 faulty reasoning types, including Optimism Bias, Post Hoc (False Cause), and Negativity Bias, with Pessimism Bias as the most egregious example at 19.5% saturation with 236 hits. Analysis detected 1,154 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,210 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 52.8% and a BS Rank of 54% (9,142 of 19,671 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 53.50% of the article peer group.
At the end of the first half of 2026 , Connecticut’s unemployment stood at 5.2%, a full percentage point higher than the national rate.
June marked the sixth month in a row that the state’s unemployment rate rose, according to the state Department of Labor’s mid-year jobs report .
But department officials were quick to emphasize a different statistic in the mid-year report.
Connecticut set a new record for the total number of nonfarm jobs, which reached 1,726,500.
And they pointed out that some long-struggling industries, including manufacturing and construction, were showing promising job growth.
“In the first half of 2026, we added more jobs than we did in all of 2025, and job growth in Connecticut was faster than the pace in the nation as a whole — not by a lot, but a little bit faster,” said Patrick Flaherty, the CTDOL’s director of research.
Unemployment is a measurement of the number of unemployed people (the numerator) divided by the total labor force, which is the number of people working or looking for work (the denominator).
In recent months, the number of unemployed people in Connecticut has ticked up; at the same time the state’s labor force has contracted.
Both trends cause the unemployment rate to rise.
The measure of nonfarm jobs, which comes from a separate survey, can include multiple jobs held by one person.
“Connecticut employers have added jobs and the state’s economy is growing slowly and steadily,” DOL Commissioner Danté Bartolomeo said in a statement released on Monday .
Still, business leaders and academics expressed concern that despite the state’s recent GDP growth and record-high payroll numbers , the unemployment measure suggests weakening in the economy.
They pointed to the difficulties facing younger entrants into the workforce and challenges employers face filling the state’s growing number of open jobs.
“When you have a high tide, when you have a stable economy, you’re hiding some of the rocks that are under the water,” said Chris DiPentima, the president and CEO of the Connecticut Business and Industry Association, the state’s largest trade group.
“But as that economy starts to slow down or that stability maybe starts to become a little more unsettled, those rocks expose themselves and they could be pretty sharp and pretty damaging.”
Inside the DOL’s latest jobs report
According to the CTDOL’s June report , the number of nonfarm payroll jobs in the state increased by 1,500, or 0.1%, last month.
That pushed total payroll jobs in the state to 1,726,500, a record high.
Private sector employment in the state increased by 1,600 jobs, or 0.1%, to a total of 1,490,900.
That was an increase of 11,200 jobs, or 0.8% from June 2025.
The changes were largely spurred by growth in five of the state’s “supersectors,” the ten largest industries in Connecticut.
In June, trade, transportation and utilities; construction and mining; manufacturing; information; and education and health services all saw job increases between 300 and 1,200.
Three sectors, including leisure and hospitality; financial activities; and government all saw declines.
Flaherty said the growth in manufacturing and construction was promising.
He said the decline in sectors like financial activities could be due to changes in technology.
He called the state’s rising unemployment rate a “puzzle,” particularly since the overall number of jobs has been growing and there appear to be many openings.
The state DOL reports that Connecticut currently has more than 80,000 job openings.
He said one possible explanation could be the struggles younger workers are facing nationally as they work to gain a foothold in the workforce.
“The pace of turnover has slowed, new entrants into the labor force are taking longer to find work,” he said.
“Whether it’s new graduates or others who are entering the labor force, they’re having a tougher time getting into employment, and that is pushing up the unemployment rate.”
A construction bright spot?
One highlight in the mid-year report was the 18-year high in employment in the state’s construction sector.
That’s a significant change from just three years ago, when the state’s construction industry declined by 900 jobs , part of a national industry slowdown that persisted even as demand for construction workers rose.
But the sector has been working its way back.
Industry leaders point to an increase in training and the work of organizations like the Connecticut State Building Trades Training Institute.
Federal policy changes like the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act have also given the industry a boost.
“Everything really has a lot of momentum right now,” said Don Shubert, the head of the Connecticut Construction Industries Association.
Leaders representing union trades workers in the state agree.
“The state of Connecticut has done a great job to coordinate or move simultaneously with that federal money that came in and make sure that projects are being done and get out the door,” said Joe Toner, the executive director of the Connecticut State Building Trades Council.
Even so, Shubert said the state’s construction industry could be even stronger, noting that there’s a “missing middle” when it comes to construction jobs.
That is, midsized, more consistent work is harder to find.
“The industry’s still not running close to capacity,” he said.
“We’re doing better than 2008, but at the same time, we could do more.”
Economic warning signs persist
DiPentima of CBIA said he’s concerned about a separate trend: people leaving the labor force, meaning they’re no longer working or looking for work.
He pointed to data that showed that — with June’s jobs data included — more than 46,000 workers have left the labor force over the last year.
“When you think about that, over the last 12 months, we’ve essentially lost the city of Middletown — the population of Middletown — from the labor force,” he said.
The state’s largest business group has long been worried about what that labor force decline could mean for local employers.
DiPentima said fewer workers could ultimately strain the state’s businesses, potentially encouraging them to move elsewhere.
The concern grows as older workers retire with fewer younger workers ready to replace them.
That’s part of why CBIA has supported the state’s efforts to build new pathways and career options from young people.
The association has also pointed to labor force shifts brought about by changing federal immigration policy, which could have an impact on the state economy by reducing a key source of population and workforce growth.
University of Connecticut economist Fred Carstensen said the state should also be concerned about the quality of jobs available.
With Connecticut’s high cost of living, workers could have a harder time surviving if they don’t earn enough, adding an additional challenge to efforts to boost the state’s workforce.
“The affordability crisis in Connecticut is significant because, unlike our neighboring states, the quality of jobs here are falling, making it progressively more difficult to pay the bills,” he said in an email.
Flaherty, DOL’s research director, said that while he recognizes some of the frustrations, Connecticut’s growth is a story worth telling.
“In many ways, having slow, steady growth, positive job growth every year, has been a real benefit to our state,” he said.
“I think that we’re in good shape.”
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