Massachusetts Added 3,500 Jobs in September. The Bigger Picture Is Harder to Cheer.

On paper, September was a good month for the Massachusetts job market. Employers added about 3,500 jobs, and the labor force posted its biggest one-month gain in more than two years.

Look past the month, though, and the story gets thinner. Year to date, the state has added only about 5,300 jobs. Over the past 12 months the gain is a little more than 16,000, most of it in health services. Unemployment held at 4.3%, slightly above the national rate of 4.2%.

The numbers behind the campaign fight

Gov. Maura Healey describes an economy that is strong and growing. Her Republican challenger, Mike Minogue, says Massachusetts is near the bottom of the country on job growth. A Boston Globe economics column called his critique largely accurate, with the caveat that rankings depend on which measures you use.

• Total employment in the state has barely grown since 2023, while U.S. payrolls rose 2.8% over the same span.
• Average unemployment this year is about 4.5%, against 4.2% nationally. In 2023 the state was slightly below the national rate.
• A Boston Fed weekly index has shown Massachusetts mostly trailing the nation.

Where Massachusetts still leads

The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation puts the state in the bottom five for private job growth, cost of living, out-migration and energy prices. It also ranks it top three for output per person, average weekly wages and venture capital. That split is the state’s economy in one line: high value, high cost, slow growth.

What it means for Boston businesses

A larger labor force is good news for employers who have struggled to hire. But slow overall growth, plus seasonal hiring from giants like Amazon and Target, means wage pressure on small businesses is not going away. The cost picture, especially housing and energy, is still the biggest lever for keeping workers in the state.

Sources: The Boston Globe. Reported and written by the Ecosystem Intelligence Desk.