The Maine Department of Labor, in conjunction with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, released October workforce estimates for Maine. The preliminary seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 4 percent was little changed from 4.1 percent in September and 4.2 percent one year ago. The number of unemployed was little changed over the year at 28,000, according to the state.

The U.S. preliminary unemployment rate of 4.9 percent was little changed from 5 percent one month and one year ago.

The employment to population ratio estimate of 60.7 percent remained modestly above the U.S. average of 59.7 percent.

The New England unemployment rate averaged 3.9 percent. Rates for other states were 2.8 percent in New Hampshire, 3.3 percent in Vermont, 3.3 percent in Massachusetts, 5.5 percent in Rhode Island, and 5.1 percent in Connecticut.

Labor force and unemployment data is available at http://www.maine.gov/labor/cwri/laus1.html .

The preliminary nonfarm payroll jobs estimate of 609,500 for October was little changed from one year ago. There was little job change in most industry sectors.

Nonfarm payroll jobs data is available at http://www.maine.gov/labor/cwri/ces1.html .

The not seasonally adjusted statewide unemployment rate estimate of 3.4 percent for October was little changed from 3.5 percent one year ago. Rates ranged from 2.8 percent in Cumberland and Sagadahoc Counties to 5.1 percent in Somerset County. Rates tended to be lower than the statewide average in southern and coastal counties and higher than average in northern and rim counties.

The unemployment rate was below the statewide average in the Portland-South Portland (2.8 percent) metro area, and close to the average in the Lewiston-Auburn (3.2 percent) and Bangor (3.5 percent) metros.

November estimates will be released on Friday, December 16 (Data Release Schedule: http://www.maine.gov/labor/cwri/releaseDates.html ).

This release is available at http://www.maine.gov/labor/cwri/news/release.html .

**NOTES**

1. Preliminary labor force estimates, including rates (labor force participation, employment, and unemployment rates), and levels (labor force, employed, and unemployed) tend to move in a direction for several months and then reverse course. Those directional trends are largely driven by a smoothing procedure and may not indicate a change in underlying workforce conditions. Annual revisions (published in March each year) tend to moderate or eliminate those directional patterns.

2. The 90 percent confidence interval for statewide unemployment rates in 2016 is 0.7 percentage points above or below the published estimate each month.

3. To assess employment growth, the state recommends looking at nonfarm jobs from the payroll survey rather than resident employment from the household survey. The payroll survey is larger, has smaller margins of error, and is subject to smaller revisions. More on the differences in accuracy of the two measures is at http://cwri.blogspot.com/2016/04/reports-that-maine-is-losing-jobs-are.html

4. Nonfarm payroll jobs estimates tend to be volatile from month to month because there is variability in the sample of reporting employers and their representativeness for the universe of all employers. Additionally, seasonal adjustment is imperfect because weather, the beginning and ending of school semesters and holidays, and other events do not always occur with the same timing, which can exacerbate monthly volatility. Users should look to the trend over multiple months rather than the change from one specific month to another. Estimates for the period from October 2015 to September 2016 will be replaced with actual payroll data in March 2017. Those benchmark revisions are likely to show less volatility than preliminary estimates.