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Across Connecticut, the number of people employed or actively searching for a job has dropped in recent months — a possible result of federal immigration policy. 

According to the most recent monthly jobs report from the Connecticut Department of Labor, the state’s labor force — people working or looking for work — decreased for the second consecutive month in July, by an estimated 2,500 people, following a drop of 3,700 in June.

A press release from the department said the declines may be related to federal immigration policy, but “CTDOL will need more months of data to determine any larger impact on the construction, restaurant, hospitality, and other industries.”

“At 64.7%, the state’s Labor Force Participation Rate remains well above the US national rate of 62.2%,” the press release stated.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests and deportations have increased sharply in Connecticut since President Donald J. Trump returned to office. There were 405 ICE arrests between January and July of this year.

Both trends are playing out similarly across the U.S. — ICE arrests are up and the labor force participation rate has dropped in many states.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said at a Congressional hearing in June that the Trump administration’s immigration policy is one of the reasons economic growth has slowed.

The fluctuation of the number of people participating in the workforce comes as Connecticut employers have slowed hiring.

The Connecticut Labor Department’s director of research, Patrick Flaherty, said in a July press release that 2025 has been a “stable” year but that job growth has not been as robust as it was in 2024.

So while the unemployment rate remains below 4%, which is considered “full employment,” part of that could reflect a decline in the number of people in the labor market — the denominator when calculating unemployment.

Year over year, Connecticut’s unemployment rate rose from 3.1% to 3.8%, according to the Labor Department’s August jobs report. However, the state still sits below the national average of 4.2%.

Nationally, including the District of Columbia, unemployment fell in only six states over the past year. It rose in 15 states, including Connecticut, and remained unchanged in 30 others.

Within Connecticut, unemployment varies by town.

Hartford saw high levels of unemployment as of July 2025, reaching nearly 7%. Waterbury, New Britain, Mansfield and Windham were also among the towns with some of the highest levels of unemployment. But those rates, while higher than the statewide average, were relatively on par with where they stood in those cities at the same time last year.

Some towns saw larger year-over-year changes in their unemployment rate. Canaan and Warren saw unemployment increase 0.79% and 0.85%, respectively.

Only six of Connecticut’s 169 towns saw unemployment decline from July 2024 to July 2025, and the changes were slight.  

Sasha is a data reporting fellow with The Connecticut Mirror. She graduated from the University of Maryland in May with a degree in journalism and a minor in creative writing. For the past year Sasha was working part time for the Herald-Mail, a newspaper based in Western Maryland. She was also a reporter and copy editor for Capital News Service, the university’s wire service where she covered the state legislature, the Baltimore Key Bridge collapse, school board elections, youth mental health and climate change. Earlier in her college career, Sasha also interned at the Baltimore Magazine and wrote for numerous student publications including the Diamondback, the university’s independent, student-run newspaper.