Patrick is returning from a trade mission to Israel and the UK.
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, right, meets with Eliezer Shkedi, CEO of El Al , left, at Ben Gurion international airport near Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, March 7, 2011. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)By Matt Murphy
BOSTON — As Gov. Deval Patrick wrapped up his trade mission to Israel and England with an announcement of 50 new jobs coming to Boston, officials at home spent Thursday trying to reconcile a mixed bag of economic news.
A report that the economy added 15,400 jobs in February leaving the unemployment rate virtually unchanged at 8.2 percent only added to the complex picture and did little to mute the fallout from Fidelity Investments’ revelation earlier in the week that it planned to shift nearly 1,100 jobs to New Hampshire and Rhode Island.
On the last day of his international trade mission, Patrick announced that Cambridge Consultants planned to add 50 new jobs at its Boston office, doubling its workforce and making that the first tangible jobs gain that the governor has pointed to during his 10-day trip to Israel and England.
While the Patrick administration has been touting the formation of partnerships with British and Israeli companies and government over the past two weeks, there had been few concrete deals struck that Patrick could point to as accomplishments on his trade mission.
Patrick returns to Boston late Thursday night after 10 days overseas and will undoubtedly be asked on Friday when he faces the media to defend the success of the trade mission, as well as explain why he thinks Fidelity has decided to close its Marlborough campus and move the bulk of those jobs to neighboring states.
The governor has said he is “frustrated” by Fidelity’s decision, and claims he was given little notice of the mutual fund company’s plans an “no opportunity to compete” for those jobs.
The state announced on Thursday that the economy had added 15,400 jobs in February, but the unemployment rate dropped only one tenth of point to 8.2 percent. January’s job gains were also revised downward by 4,000, to 1,600.
“I am extremely encouraged by today's announcement that we added 15,400 jobs in Massachusetts last month. These numbers are another positive sign that our strategy for growing jobs by investing in education and our innovation economy is working,” Patrick said in a statement.
In an interview with the News Service, Lt. Gov. Tim Murray also called the job gains “encouraging news.”
“There are still challenges. We’re clear-eyed about those challenges,” he said. “But we’re making progress, and every day we’re working at it.”
Murray pointed to companies he’s visited in Hopkinton, Winchendon and Avon that he said are adding jobs
Murray also noted federal data showing that new unemployment claims fell faster in Massachusetts last week than they did in any other state. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, unemployment claims dropped by 2,482 in the week that ended March 12. The next closest state was Oregon, with a drop of 1,680 claims.
Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, said the “problem” with the unemployment rate is that it measures the number of people actively seeking employment.
“I think it’s probably more important to look at the actual jobs that were added, so 15,000 additional jobs is a very positive sign and I’m encouraged by that. I think the rate will gradually come down if we keep adding jobs,” Widmer said.
He said Massachusetts should continue to rebound from the recession, but predicted the recovery will continue to be slow.
“We’re having a recovery in Massachusetts. It’s not a dramatic recovery yet. I’m not sure it will be anytime soon, and obviously what’s happening both in the Middle East and in Japan are clearly questioning whether we’re going to have the slow economic recovery we in the nation thought we would have,” Widmer said.
Cambridge Consultants, which creates and licenses intellectual property and provides business consultancy in technology, joined Patrick Thursday in announcing plans to double its Boston workforce over the next year.
“For several years, the United States has been the single most important market for our company, and the East Coast is a particularly active area for us with a concentration of innovative companies looking for technology to give them real market advantage," Cambridge Consultants CEO Brian Moon said. "It is therefore a strategic imperative that we significantly grow our office in Boston, MA, and we are looking to increase our head count in our US office by 50. We are a people-focused business and are excited about the prospect of growing our US team with even more forward thinking, highly-skilled and innovative individuals.”
The company currently employs about 300 engineers, designers, scientists and consultants at its Cambridge, England headquarters and Boston office.
House Minority Leader Brad Jones, who caucused with Republicans on Evacuation Day to hear presentations from the Pioneer Institute and the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation on health care payment reform and municipal health bargaining reform, questioned whether Patrick’s travels were worth the cost.
Jones said he had been led to believe from the administration that there would be a series of positive economic announcements coming from the trip, not just the single corporate expansion and several partnership agreements.
“I think that’s far short of what all of us we’re led to believe and it really makes it look more like instead of being a mission of advocacy for the Commonwealth leading to jobs, it look more like a nice vacation for the governor,” Jones said.
Jones also questioned why Democratic leaders were planning an investigation by the Post Audit and Oversight Committee on Fidelity’s move, but did not do the same for Evergreen Solar who shifted jobs overseas after it received tax breaks. Jones said that unlike Evergreen, he felt Fidelity lived up to its agreement from 1996 that provide tax incentives to the mutual fund industry in exchange for five years of job growth.
“None of us are happy that those jobs are leaving but we should be having a discussion about why those jobs are leaving from a broader economic perspective in terms of regulatory and tax policy,” Jones said.
Widmer, a former Dukakis administration official, stopped short of criticizing Patrick for traveling overseas, but said he’s never been a strong believer in trade missions.
“I’ve thought trade missions have always had more theater and less reality. I don’t fault this governor for doing what every other governor has done. In fact, he’s done less than most, so perhaps there’s some benefits, but I think in the end job creation is at home building on the companies that are here rather than trying to attract companies from across the globe,” Widmer said.