Politics & Government

Economist: Job Recovery Won't Happen Until 2016, At Earliest

Don Klepper-Smith says Connecticut's recovery from the recession continues to move at a slow pace.

The state's Department of Labor reported this week that unemployment in Connecticut had fallen to 8.6 percent in December.

The figure, however, doesn't account for those who are unemployed but no longer looking work, economist Don Klepper-Smith told the New Haven Register.

The Durham resident, who serves as chief economist at DataCore Partners in New Haven, said Connecticut has only recovered one-quarter of the job losses in the three-and-a-half years since the recovery began.

Find out what's happening in Grotonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"Even if we were to assume a ‘robust job scenario’ of roughly 2,000 new jobs each month going forward as we did in the 1980s, we’re still not likely to see full job recovery in Connecticut until mid-2016 at the earliest," he told the paper.

Klepper-Smith tells the New London Day that the true unemployment rate in Connecticut is 14.4 percent.

Find out what's happening in Grotonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Nationally, the official unemployment rate is 7.9 percent.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here