CHARTS: Robust Job Market on Beacon Hill

If you're looking for a job in Boston, there's a high likelihood it will have something to do with Beacon Hill—and you'll have a much tougher time looking online for jobs in the North End. Indeed, the firm that powers our jobs board, found more than 24,000 jobs posted within a short distance of Downtown Boston (specifically, the 02116 zip code). Within those, we performed a search for mentions of each of the Boston neighborhood served by Patch. Beacon Hill far outperformed all others, boasting nearly twice as many job postings as the next-most mentioned neighborhood. It also had nearly triple the number of jobs posted per thousand residents in the neighborhood. The North End underperformed, with just 16 jobs posted online. But, given the …

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Environment Improving for Boston Building Trades

Even so, some trades still have unemployment rates as high as 30 percent.

Life as a union laborer is tricky in Boston right now—but it’s better than it has been, and rosier times are on the horizon. “There’s some confidence now in the marketplace and some comfort for the developers,” said State Rep. Marty Walsh, D-Dorchester.  That comfort, he said, is getting investors off the sidelines and back into the building game—which creates jobs for iron workers, electricians and wire-strippers living across the city. Right now, Walsh said some trades in Boston suffer unemployment rates as high as 30 percent.  That’s an improvement, he said, from the 50 percent unemployment seen in some trades at the height of the recession. “The numbers we were looking at were Great Depression numbers,” he said. And that already-better…

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March Unemployment Rates in Greater Boston

A look at unemployment rates in Greater Boston.

The state's unemployment rate dropped to 6.4 percent in March, down significantly from the 7.5 percent mark posted in February, according to numbers released by the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development. That dip is reflected in many of the communities in and around Boston. In the city itself, the rate dropped to 5.5 percent, remaining roughly a percentage point below the state average. The story is mixed in neighboring communities, from Cambridge at nearly full employment (3.3 percent), to above average unemployment to the north in Revere (7.5 percent) and Chelsea (8.7 percent). The table below shows the unemployment rates for a sampling of Greater Boston. Have you seen evidence of a stronger hiring market? Are you a …

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Boston's Unemployment Rate Continues to Fall

The state's city-to-city unemployment rates for February 2012.

The national unemployment rate has been a hot topic since the start of the Great Recession. At 6.9 percent, Massachusetts as a whole has a lower unemployment rate than the nation (8.3 percent). The rates have been dropping at an excrutiatingly slow pace, which is good news. But the national and state level rates don't tell the whole story. Unemployment numbers for cities and towns are the last figures released for a given month. While we know Massachusetts' March unemployment rate, we only have February numbers for cities and towns.  The chart below has the February unemployment numbers for Boston and the surrounding communities. Boston has an average unemployment rate in the region at 6.6 percent, more or less in line with state numbers. …

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Charles Street Is on a Hiring Spree

Several businesses on the street have recently hired or are looking for part-time employees.

All along Charles Street there is proof that work has become more available on Beacon Hill. As of Friday afternoon, five businesses had posted “helped wanted” signs on their façade. In addition, at least two others hired new employees in July and August. Most boutiques and cafes in the neighborhood’s central business district, however, are seeking not full-time, but instead part-time and weekend workers, managers and employees said. Massachusetts’ unemployment rate as of August was 7.4 percent, lower than the country’s 9.1 percent. But adding the number of part-time employees raises the state’s percentage of under-employed people to 15.9 percent, according to a Sept. 26 report by The Boston Globe. Two employees at Black Ink said the gift …

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