PORTLAND, Maine - Maine's jobless numbers are holding pretty steady. The state Labor Department says Maine's preliminary seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for October was 4 percent, little changed from 4.1 percent in September and 4.2 percent a year ago.
DOL economist Glenn Mills says, historically, the state has only gone below 4 percent for short periods of time. "Generally when you're down around 4 percent you're talking about a fairly tight labor market and that's especially true in the southern part of the state."
Mills says the October unemployment rate for Cumberland County is 2.9 percent and for the Portland metro area 2.8 percent.
He say Maine is starting to bump up against demographic constraints. Mills says the state has a large share of baby boomers aging out of the workforce with smaller numbers of young people coming in to the workforce.
