Connecticut: 11,500 jobs added by employers in Sept., jobless rate lowest in nearly 6 years

Employers in Connecticut added 11,500 jobs in September, cutting the unemployment rate to its lowest in nearly six years, the state Labor Department announced Monday.

The unemployment rate fell to 6.4 percent, from 6.6 percent in August, the lowest since November 2008.

The Labor Department also revised the job loss in August, to 1,200 from 3,600 initially reported.

Andy Condon, the Department of Labor's research director, said some gains were expected, particularly in public education and leisure and hospitality affected by seasonal shifts. Still, he said the numbers are "very encouraging."

The employment gain is the largest since April 1994, the seventh monthly nonfarm employment gain this year and a "vigorous bounce-back" from the revised decline of 1,200 jobs in August, the Department of Labor said.

But Condon cautioned that monthly sample-based labor statistics "can be volatile in either direction and should be looked at in context of longer trends over several months."

The monthly employment release is the last before Election Day on Nov. 4.

Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who is in a tight re-election battle with Republican challenger Tom Foley, reacted immediately to the jobs report.

"Today's jobs report is another sign that we are making steady progress in improving our state's economy," he said.

Foley's campaign criticized the pace of the jobs recovery. The state reported that Connecticut has recovered 85,300 jobs, or 71.6 percent of the 119,100 seasonally adjusted jobs lost during the March 2008 to February 2010 recession.

Christopher Cooper, a spokesman for Foley, said Connecticut has "one of the worst recovery rates in the nation."

"Our weak recovery is the result of Dan Malloy's failed policies and things will not improve without a change of leadership and a new direction," he said.