PORTLAND, Maine — Maine’s unemployment rate hit 4.0 percent in December, down from 5.5 percent in December 2015 and landing at the lowest point since 2001.
The decline in Maine’s jobless rate continued by virtue of a smaller estimated number of people working or looking for work, according to data from the Maine Department of Labor.
The estimate of Maine’s total labor force dropped 2.5 percent over the year and the share of Maine’s population that is employed dipped below the national average for the first time since 1999. That rate of employment to population was on par with the national average through the recession, in late 2008 and 2009, but stopped short as the national average continued to fall.
For the year, the numbers of employed and unemployed dropped. Those numbers combined make up the labor force, which dropped by an estimated 17,000 last year.
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That drop was the result of about 5,900 fewer people employed and 11,180 fewer people classified as unemployed or who wanted work but couldn’t find it.
The year-end figures show Maine’s decreasing unemployment rate continues to depend on people exiting the labor force, not overall job gains.
Within the total employment estimate for all jobs, the number of payroll jobs — people on someone else’s payroll — continued to climb, up 8,600 for the year.
Maine’s unemployment rate in December was lower than the regional average of 4.7 percent for the six New England states, coming in higher than New Hampshire (3.1 percent) and Vermont (3.6 percent) and lower than Massachusetts (4.7 percent), Rhode Island (5.1 percent) and Connecticut (5.2 percent).