Excerpts from the MassBenchmarks Board: Anemic real wage growth restrains state economy
June 2017
The Massachusetts economy has appeared to slow in recent months even as the state continues to add jobs at a solid pace. The recent rise in the state unemployment rate has been driven by the return of inactive workers to the labor force rather than growing joblessness. These developments continue to raise concerns about the extent to which the performance of the state economy is being restrained by emerging and long-standing shortages in key occupational niches and an inadequate supply of skilled and unskilled labor in those areas of the Bay State where labor demand continues to be strong. Yet wage growth remains sluggish and is not rising as we would expect given the current economic environment.
