Springfield's unemployment rate fell to 11.6 percent, the city's lowest rate since November 2009.
SPRINGFIELD – Springfield’s unemployment rate fell in April to 11.6 percent, down 1.2 percentage points from 12.8 percent in March.
It’s the lowest the city’s unemployment rate has been since it was 11.5 percent in November 2009, said Rena Kottcamp, director of research for the Massachusetts Department of Unemployment Assistance.
There were 7,933 unemployed people in Springfield in April, down from 8,813 a month before.
At 11.6 percent last month, Springfield had the eighth-highest unemployment rate in the state.
Holyoke was the next-highest Western Massachusetts city with 10.2 percent unemployment, down from 11.2 percent in March and 10.7 percent in April 2010, according to unemployment figures released Tuesday by the state Executive Office Of Labor and Workforce Development and the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Springfield, Holyoke and other small cities continue to trail the region as a whole when it comes to recovery, said Robert A. Nakosteen, a professor of economics and statistics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Isenberg School of Management. Unemployment for the Springfield federal statistical area, which includes most of Hampden County, fell to 8.5 percent in April from 9.4 percent a month earlier and 9.1 percent a year ago.
“There are structural reasons for it that will linger even after the national recovery has taken hold,” Nakosteen said. “A lack of education and job skills in those areas is a big factor.”
The state’s seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate was 7.4 percent in April, down from 8.2 percent in March 2011 and 8.4 percent a year ago. Adjusted for seasonal fluctuations in the economy, the state’s unemployment rate was 7.8 percent in April, down from 8 percent in March.
The national unemployment rate for April was 9 percent.
Nakosteen said those jobless numbers only look good relative to the recession.
“But it really is not good at all,” Nakosteen said. “Creating 200,000 jobs across the country last month made headlines. But in other recoveries it was not unusual to create 300,000 or 400,000 jobs in a month. There is a broad-based economic recovery. But boy is it ever at a snail’s pace.”
The Springfield region added 4,800 jobs from March to April, a 1.7 percent gain, Kottcamp said. Those jobs included seasonal positions such as tourism and construction. But jobs were also added in education and health-care and in trade and transportation. Manufacturing added 900 new jobs in Hampden County last month.
“It feels now like manufacturers are starting to think long-term,” said David C. Gadaire, executive director of CareerPoint in Holyoke. “Last year they were only looking contract to contract.”
Gadaire said the unemployed understandably get discouraged but they must keep looking.
“The only place you don’t want to be is on the sidelines,” he said. “If you are not comfortable getting in the game, come to us, come to FutureWorks in Springfield, and we’ll help you.”
