Connecticut payrolls reach record highs after September job gain

Connecticut employers added an estimated 1,400 payroll jobs in September, bringing total employment to 1,731,600 and private-sector employment to 1,496,700. The Connecticut Department of Labor described both totals as new highs in its September labor report, issued Oct. 19.

The gain followed a downward revision to August: the department now estimates that payroll employment fell by 600 jobs that month. September’s number is an estimate and may be revised in a later report.

Year-to-date growth and manufacturing i

Through September, Connecticut job growth was 0.9%, compared with 0.4% nationally, according to the department. That is a year-to-date comparison, not a comparison of September’s monthly gain with the national monthly change.

Manufacturing employment stood at 157,700. The sector added 6,500 jobs year to date, the largest year-to-date gain among the industries reported by the department. Those figures identify manufacturing as a notable part of the state’s reported employment gains; they do not establish what caused the change.

Unemployment and labor-force measures i

The unemployment rate held at 5.1%, where the department said it had remained for six months. That measure was unchanged even as payroll employment rose in September. The figures describe different aspects of the statewide labor market and should not be read as interchangeable measures of the same change.

The department also reported that Connecticut’s labor force grew by 3,500 in September and that the labor-force participation rate was 62.1%. Together with the payroll estimates and unemployment rate, those measures provide a statewide snapshot of employment and labor-force conditions. They do not show how the figures were distributed among individual cities.

The Connecticut Department of Labor scheduled its October labor situation report for Nov. 19, 2026. It is the department’s next scheduled update to the state’s labor-market figures.