Job loss high in all sectors; Salem hit hard

State labor officials Thursday reported that job losses were higher during January in all sectors of the economy.The Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development said preliminary January area unemployment rates, not adjusted for seasonality, were higher in all 12 of the state’s labor areas for which unadjusted estimates are published.The over-the-month and over-the-year job losses and increases in the unemployment rates reflect the breadth of the deepening national recession, which has infused Massachusetts’ labor markets.The Boston-Cambridge-Quincy and Amherst area unemployment rate changes are less than the statewide experience. The sharpest and steepest unemployment rate impacts are in the New Bedford, Fall River, Lawrence-Methuen-Salem and Leominster-Fitchburg-Gardner areas.Statewide, the seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate increased from 6.5 percent in December to 8.1 percent for January. The unadjusted unemployment rates and jobs estimates for the labor markets may show different trends than the statewide seasonally adjusted estimates.The statewide seasonally adjusted January 2009 unemployment rate, released last week, rose from 6.4 percent in December to 7.4 percent. These estimates showed both over- the-month and over-the-year losses.