Employment hits 5-year high as administration retreats from job estimates

Boston - A day after Gov. Deval Patrick projected federal aid would create “hundreds of thousands” of jobs in Massachusetts, the administration retreated Thursday from the estimate, as fresh employment data showed joblessness reaching a five-year peak.The state’s jobless rate jumped to 5.9 percent in November, its highest level since August 2003, as employers slashed 8,000 positions, the third straight month of cuts. The state also raised the official October job-loss count, from 7,000 to 8,000, bringing the total decline since August to 19,100, according to the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development. Statewide, the November figures said 203,000 people were unemployed.On Wednesday, Patrick rolled out a $4.7 billion wish list of infrastructure projects he wants federal assistance to fund, expected to reap major gains for the construction industry, with benefits reverberating throughout the economy. In response to a reporter’s question during a press conference, Patrick said, “At its height, we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of jobs. These are direct jobs.”One top aide to Patrick called the “hundreds of thousands” figure unrealistic.Patrick’s labor and workforce development chief, Suzanne Bump, said Thursday that those estimates were more suitable for national job gains. “I think he was talking about the national bill,” said Bump when asked about Patrick’s projections. Asked for her expectations of the stimulus’s impact, she said, “I couldn’t begin to estimate, because we don’t know how much money could be coming and what categories it will be in.”Asked whether the administration believed Patrick’s projection was accurate, Patrick spokeswoman Kimberly Haberlin replied in an email, “While details of the plan are still being worked out, it is clear that an infusion of federal funds will lead to significant job creation here in Massachusetts and across the country.”Aides said Patrick was referring to highway construction job estimates provided by the New England Council, which pegged region-wide job creation at 45,000 in the first six months of the federal recovery plan. Over two years, according to those estimates, 180,000 new jobs would be generated. President-Elect Barack Obama has pledged to save or create 2.5 million jobs in his first two years.The state has 3.275 million jobs, down 10,700 from a year ago. The construction industry, expected to be the biggest beneficiary of the federal stimulus, shed 1,700 jobs last month, bringing the three-month net loss to 4,800 and the size of the industry to 130,000.Sen. Jack Hart, co-chair of the Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies, said it was too early to judge local employment results from the federal package. “I don’t think anybody can predict it here,” said Hart (D-South Boston). “Would we like to see a hundred thousand jobs created here? Sure, but I think it’s tough to say.”“Let’s hope that it creates in the range of a hundred-thousand. But if it falls a little short, that’s OK,” Hart said.Bump predicted a protracted slump in state employment. "We expected the trend [in unemployment] to be an upward one, and economists have suggested we better get accustomed to seeing this,” she said. “It’s certainly going to be this way for a while." Patrick has stumbled over job creation projections before, while trying to build support for his casino proposal. The administration’s original estimate of 30,000 was undercut by subsequent outside calculations, and Patrick backed off the figure.Patrick on Wednesday laid out the state’s strategy for capitalizing on an expected federal aid package that federal officials say could reach $1 trillion. The apportionment method is still undecided, and competition is likely to be fierce both among the states and once the aid is delivered. The Bay State’s share is unclear.Massachusetts’s unemployment rate is still outperforming national numbers, where the unemployment rate has hit 6.7 percent. The three straight months of job losses, though, bode poorly, analysts said. “At some point, things are bound to change, we’re bound to be affected by the national economy,” said UMass-Amherst economics professor Robert Nakosteen. “And that started to happen in August. Since August, where we started falling off the table, the economy has deteriorated rapidly since then.”“Everything is sort of permeating the state from the national and local economies, and this is the continuation of a trend that really started at the end of the summer,” Nakosteen said. Bump said an internal survey of employers’ willingness to replace departing workers showed reluctance in the second quarter, what she called “a sharp decrease in vacancies.”“That’s evidence that employers already were starting to plan for a pinch, were already starting to cut back,” Bump said. “We didn’t really feel a contraction until August, but they were preparing for the second quarter.”The jobless rate announced Thursday was up 1.2 percent over a year ago, with the state recording 10,700 fewer jobs, and up from 5.5 percent in October. Both government and the information sector added positions last month, with professional, scientific and business services posting the biggest subtraction, 2,000 positions. Education and health services dropped 1,500 jobs, the sector's third straight monthly decline.Bump said the benefits from a stimulus would likely blanket different sectors. “If this economic stimulus is as broadly composed as we are hearing it might be, then that means opportunities across a wide number of job occupations,” she said. “That’s why we are so looking forward to it, and secondly why there needs to be so much planning for it.”