Connecticut Adds 4,900 Jobs In March

Connecticut added 4,900 jobs in March, with restaurants, bars and hotels accounting for 2,200 of that figure and stores adding another 1,700, the state Department of Labor reported Thursday.

That's a strong monthly job-creation number, but restaurants and hotels are the lowest-paid jobs sector, and retail is second-lowest.

“Somebody in the state has money to spend — they are spending it,” said economist Ed Deak, professor emeritus from Fairfield University. “Even though it's low paid, it's still jobs that people wouldn't have otherwise.”

The job report also showed that February's initial estimate of 800 new jobs was too low, with data now suggesting that employers added 1,400 jobs that month. Year-over-year, the state has added 9,400 jobs.

Greg Vayneris, general manager of Mikro in Hamden, added three men in the kitchen last month to the 20-person staff because the 53-seat craft beer bar is so busy.

“On the slower days, they became not slow,” Vayneris said. “We were just discussing, we hired the two extra people for prep because the days we used to have three guys, we needed four, the days we used to have two guys, we needed three.”

He said that Sunday brunch has gotten so busy that he needed a dishwasher.

The owner of Mikro, along with a New Haven restaurateur, opened a new restaurant in Hamden in March, Smoke Box BBQ, which created three new jobs and more shifts for three other employees.

In March, the nation as a whole returned to the level of private-sector employment that existed before the recession. Connecticut's private employers have regained 68 percent of the jobs they cut during the recession.

Connecticut's unemployment rate, which is determined from a separate, smaller survey, was unchanged in March, at 7 percent.

“We're still lagging relative to the national pace of the recovery, but thank God we're moving in the right direction,” Deak said.

Some restaurants and bars hired additional staff in March as they usually do, in preparation for outdoor dining — which might not show up in the jobs numbers because each month is adjusted in an effort to eliminate seasonal variations.

Sarah Maloney, general manager at Restaurant Bricco in West Hartford, said the extra 10 patio tables require an extra hostess and two extra waitresses each night. Some of that is covered with more shifts for existing staff, but Maloney said that she hired one waitress a month ago who is in training.

The Billy Grant group owns Bricco, Bricco Trattoria in Glastonbury and Grant's Restaurant and Bar in West Hartford, as well as a catering business. The total employment at all those places is about 235. Bricco Trattoria just added two servers and one hostess within the month.

Joyce Raicik, director of operations at the Billy Grant restaurant group, said that although the restaurants always add a server or two at this time of year, the West Hartford restaurants are also seeing higher sales compared to a year ago. She said that more tables are full and there's higher spending per table.

With entrees selling for $16 to $37, the small chain appeals to upscale diners, and that's the group — the top 20 percent of earners — who have seen nearly all the income increases in the past five years. According to a recent paper from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, that income segment is also responsible for much of the renewed economic demand.

Between 2008 and 2012, the top 20 percent of earners accounted for almost half of the country's total increase in consumer spending.

“From the standpoint of a healthy economy, if you had your druthers, you would like to see the second and third quintiles having more money to spend,” Deak said.

Overall, average private-sector workers' earnings in Connecticut increased 1.4 percent compared to March 2013, and inflation increased 1.5 percent.

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