The Bay State could soon hit a "spring stall" when it comes to recovery and growth as federal budget cuts and European economic weakness threaten to choke off job opportunities, experts said yesterday.
"I don't see a whole lot of oomph out there to get job growth in Massachusetts," said Robert Nakosteen, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst's Isenberg School of Management.
Massachusetts lost an estimated 5,500 jobs last month even as the state's unemployment rate dipped a tenth of a point to 6.4 percent, according to the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development.
"There's nothing inherent about spring except this one has the sequester and the payroll tax increase and continuing uncertainty about the debt limit and budget deals," Nakosteen said. "All of those extract a price."
Nakosteen added the state could expect to see "fairly flat" job growth for the duration of the year as residents start to feel the pinch of automatic federal budget cuts, which will also cut unemployment insurance assistance by nearly 13 percent for close to 45,000 residents collecting benefits for more than 26 weeks.
Before March's jobs plunge, Massachusetts had only added 500 jobs in February.
While the state's education and health services, and leisure and hospitality sectors added 2,200 and 300 jobs, respectively, last month, Massachusetts' professional, scientific and business services sector took a big hit — losing 3,400 jobs in March.
"That sector has been growing quite strongly in recent years, fueled by the innovation economy here," said Michael Goodman, a public policy professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, who called March's jobs figures "clearly disappointing."
"The decline in professional and business services is consistent with what one would expect from the kinds of cuts that have been taking place at the federal level," he said.
Northeastern University economist Alan Clayton-Matthews added that unrest in Europe has continued to be "a drag" on the state's economy.
"I expect to see slower job growth over the next several months, but I do not expect to see continued job losses of this magnitude," he said.
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