Mainers are vetting workplaces more before accepting job offers

Corporate profits in Maine are rising faster than labor costs, suggesting that businesses are keeping profits rather than passing them along in worker wages, James Myall, a policy analyst at the liberal Maine Center for Economic Policy, said.

It still is difficult to hire workers, but Maine’s labor market is a little less tight than it was last year, he said. The national Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey estimated there were about 41,000 job openings in Maine each month between April and June of this year, which is significantly higher than the 32,000 in the same months of 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The labor market in Maine may be loosening a small amount, but it remains very strong,” Myall said. “That’s corroborated by the low unemployment rate.”

Click here to read the full story, first published August 25, 2023 in the Bangor Daily News.