The gap between Connecticut job growth and the pace of the national job recovery after the pandemic recession is widening, according to the Voice of Connecticut, a policy research group on the Connecticut workforce, in its latest annual report. It is expected to impede economic growth in the state for several years. child.
Researchers believe that the decline in state and local government public sector employment since the Great Recession is the main reason for the slowdown in employment growth. They also highlighted new findings that show unemployment remains high among Black and Latinx Connecticut residents and that wages for these groups are disproportionately low. and could hinder economic expansion, researchers say.
“The state’s precarious position related to employment and pay equity is something we should pay close attention to,” said Emily Byrne, executive director of Connecticut Voices for Children.
“Expanding employment is a key component of economic growth and a major source of growth in the tax base,” the report said. “Compared to the United States, Connecticut’s slow job recovery is contributing to its slow economic recovery.”
The group advocates limiting so-called “non-competitive” agreements that can prevent low-wage workers from asking for higher wages, providing stable schedules through “Fair Work Week” laws, and providing affordable labor. It recommended various policies aimed at closing the wage-employment gap, such as expanding childcare. Competing employers further raise minimum wages.
The Connecticut Voice also called for more public sector employment, which has higher union representation and lower levels of wage inequality across the sector.
“Like the recovery from the recent recession, the loss of public sector jobs has slowed Connecticut’s recovery from the Great Recession,” said Patrick O’Brien, research and policy director at the organization. I’m here. Public sector jobs, including education, corrections, hospitals, courts and other government jobs, have fallen by 29,500 since the Great Recession, O’Brien said.
“One way we think governments can most directly address this problem is, essentially, by funding these public sector jobs. “These things are related,” he said.
Chris Depentima, president of the Connecticut Industry Association, said he agreed with the report’s assessment of the labor market shortage. I chose to live elsewhere.
But Dipentima sees the decline in public sector employment “due to retirement, modernization and efficiency” as a positive development since the Great Recession.
“Certainly there are some areas in the public sector that need to be filled,” he said, citing corrections and transportation. Making Connecticut Residents More Efficient, With Fewer Staff. ”
“We don’t need a bigger government,” he said.
One of the bright spots in this year’s report is the data showing average wages for lower and middle income earners are rising faster than in the past. Inequality persists in Connecticut, but has narrowed slightly over the past two years as the state mandates a minimum wage hike and increases demand for workers.
The annual adjustment to Connecticut’s minimum wage, which will rise again to $15 an hour next June, has improved equity, O’Brien said. The wage gap between white workers and workers of color is the smallest in the minimum wage bracket because the minimum wage “sets the minimum wage for all workers,” he said.
However, he added: …This is a trend break like the last 40 years. ”