A milestone has been reached in a few communities of the Merrimack Valley where the unemployment rates have returned to their pre-pandemic levels of March 2020. Groveland and Rowley are the first communities in the region to reach this mark, while Merrimac and Newburyport are not far behind. Although some of our communities have seen this success, there are several, including our gateway cities, that still sit at roughly double the unemployment rates they had pre-pandemic.
| Community | March ’20 Unemployment % | November ’21 Unemployment % |
| Amesbury | 2.7 | 3.8 |
| Andover | 2.2 | 3.4 |
| Boxford | 1.9 | 2.8 |
| Georgetown | 2.2 | 3.3 |
| Groveland | 2.5 | 2.4 |
| Haverhill | 2.2 | 5.5 |
| Lawrence | 5.1 | 10.0 |
| Merrimac | 2.5 | 2.8 |
| Methuen | 3.2 | 5.9 |
| Newbury | 2.6 | 4.1 |
| Newburyport | 2.4 | 2.9 |
| North Andover | 2.3 | 4.6 |
| Rowley | 3.3 | 3.4 |
| Salisbury | 3.4 | 4.7 |
| West Newbury | 2.1 | 3.9 |
About this data: The Merrimack Valley October unemployment snapshot contains the state-reported municipal-level data as non-seasonally adjusted. This means that fluctuations in unemployment may be due to changes in seasonal work and may not be a complete picture of the workforce. Statewide, the seasonally adjusted unemployment numbers actually suggest a continued decrease in unemployment throughout Massachusetts since June 2020, as shown in the bold green line on the graph above.
Data Source: Commonwealth of Massachusetts Labor Market Information
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