The state’s economy continues to be propelled along by people wanting some new place to live or at least to fix up the one they have.
On paper, the state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for August did not move, remaining at 4.6 percent. And that’s only a tenth of a point below where it was a year ago.
It also remains above the national jobless rate of 3.9 percent in August.
But buried in the figures release Thursday by the Office of Economic Opportunity is that the construction industry added 900 jobs last month and 15,100 in the past year.
While that may not seem like much, it has to be noted that overall private sector employment grew by 76,100 since the same time last year. And the construction industry makes up less than 7 percent of total private sector employment.
