Gloucester’s unemployment rate reached an eight-year low in April, bettering the previous low mark set at the close of the 2014 tourism season, the state’s latest labor statistics show.
State and local officials, however, are not sure why April’s Gloucester jobless rate of 5.6 percent was so much lower than March’s 7.1 percent rate.
The job figures show that just 873 Gloucester workers were unemployed at the end of April, compared to 1,122 in March. The same report, however, shows that just 67 more Gloucester workers were on the job in April than had been in March. (14,767 as opposed to March’s 14,700). The difference is pegged to a drop in the city’s recognized labor force from 15,822 in March to 15,640 a month later.
