PORTLAND, Maine - Maine's unemployment rate continues to decline. March's rate of 3.4 percent was down from 3.6 percent in February, and the lowest jobless number the state has seen since February of 2001. A year ago it was 4.6 percent.
Economist Glenn Mills, of the Maine Department of Labor, says the state has seen continued job growth and a tightening labor market, along with a labor force that is not growing. He says Maine's labor force is constrained by the structure of the state's population.
"We have a somewhat higher share of seniors than the nation," Mills says. "We have a much higher share of people in their 60's and 50's, and of course not everybody retires right at 65. Some work longer; some retire earlier. But we also have the smallest share of people under 20 in the nation, who are the people who would come into the labor force to replace them."
The U.S. preliminary unemployment rate of 5 percent was little changed from February and down from 5.5 percent a year ago.
