Connecticut’s unemployment rate has been climbing for three years. In July 2026, almost 100,000 people were unemployed—the highest number of unemployed adults since 2021. At the same time, there were more than 86,000 job vacancies in the state.

People need work, and businesses need workers, but there is a disconnect in the labor market. It stems from a skills gap in the labor force, which is reinforced by public education, and an affordability crisis that makes it hard for people to earn a living wage. 

Barriers to Entry

Tiago Taveira cannot find a job. 

Taveira, a Portuguese national, graduated from Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) this past spring with a bachelor’s degree in computer science and a minor in business. 

“I have a marketing background, so I’m kind of trying to leverage that,” Taveira said. “Either get into marketing and then go into analytics or go into like marketing analytics. But there’s a lot of experience that is needed even for entry-level (jobs).”

Worker shortages beget hiring problems, which beget worker shortages. When a company is short on manpower, they do not have employees to spare for training. That contributes to 38% of all “entry-level” positions requiring at least three years of work experience. 

Taveira says he has applied to around 150 jobs since February but hasn’t gotten any offers. Although he sent applications across the country, most of the jobs he is looking at are in the Northeast.

He uses LinkedIn and Handshake; he’s tried reaching out to employers directly and posted a picture of his resume on TikTok. He’s gotten a few interviews, but he says companies “ghost” him after that.

Taveira thinks part of his problem is that he is an immigrant. If he can find a job within 90 days of graduation, his visa will be extended by three years, but after that, he will need a company to sponsor him. He believes a lot of hiring managers automatically write him off because of that extra hurdle. Also, there are some jobs he cannot apply for because he is not a citizen. For example, some of the positions he considered applying to at Electric Boat, which handles military contracts, are only open to U.S. citizens.  

But immigrants aren’t the only people struggling to find work. Most of Taveira’s American friends who graduated with him also can’t find jobs. With the exception of those interested in nursing work, he says, the rest of his friends are going to graduate school.

The total number of unemployed people in Connecticut has been increasing since 2021, and the overall unemployment rate started climbing in 2022. As of July, 5.2% of the workforce was unemployed, well above the national rate of 4.2%.

“Unemployment claims still remain pretty low, and so this is a low-hire, low-fire labor market,” Michelle Parlos, an economist with the Office of the State Comptroller, said at Comptroller Sean Scanlon’s May Economic Update. “Connecticut’s unemployment rate has been sort of gradually rising and… We think that this has more to do with people taking longer to get new jobs, so these are new graduates, these are people who are maybe self-employed and now are looking for payroll jobs.”

Around 63,000 people between the ages of 14 and 26 in Connecticut are not working, in education, or in training, otherwise known as being “disconnected,” according to a 2023 state-commissioned report from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). There are another 49,000 people in this age range who are at severe risk of becoming disconnected.

Since the study was published, Connecticut’s unemployment rate has increased and is disproportionately impacting young adults. 

To put it in other terms, one in five young people in Connecticut is currently, or may soon be, disconnected. 

Disconnected young adults cost state residents between $650 million and $750 million a year, the study from BCG found.  If these people were working, the report states, they would contribute to the state’s economy by paying taxes, paying for goods and services, and generating wealth through their work. Instead, many of them are net tax burdens; they rely on SNAP and other welfare programs or are incarcerated.

The problem extends beyond people with college degrees. 

The construction industry is expanding in Connecticut, and while there is an industry-wide labor shortage, union jobs are in high demand. 

“I would say since COVID, five or six years, each year we have more applications going into our apprenticeship program than the year before, and each year it breaks a record of people applying to trade unions,” said Joe Toner, the executive Director of the Connecticut State Building Trades Council. “I’ve never seen as many applications in my career; I’ve been doing this since I was 18; I’m 58.”

There are 14 trade councils in the union, who each have their own worker quotas and training requirements. 

The State Building Trades Council forecasts how many union jobs there will be in the next few years before admitting people to the apprenticeship program. They are careful to admit only as many people into the program as there will be jobs when they graduate, which makes the program very exclusive.

In recent years, the Building Trades Council has admitted more than 1,000 people a year into apprenticeship programs, but thousands more apply.

Many people are weeded out because they do not complete their applications, or they fail a math examination, or some other circumstance occurs. The final stage in the admission process is interviews, and 80% of people who are interviewed for an apprenticeship program are rejected.

 “In a perfect world, we would love to have more of the market share. We would love to make sure more people are making a livable wage with secure retirements,” Toner said. “But we’re competing against folks that, in many cases, aren’t even covering their workers with workers’ comp or paying them a livable wage, or they’re paying them under the table.”

Although Taveira is disconnected, he isn’t relying on welfare benefits. He is living with the same family friends he stayed with while he went through college, whom he knows from Portugal. He is thinking of taking a break from job applications and visiting home for a bit.

“It’s exhausting. It’s like a full-time job to look for one. I’m kinda taking a break right now because mentally, I was like, ‘My God, this is insane,’” Taveira said. “I’m thinking of going back home for a little bit. Maybe I’ll restart in different scenery.”

If he does return to Portugal, he says it would only be temporary. He isn’t sure if his degree will be accepted there, so his job prospects might not be better. 

Life in Portugal is not as desirable either; in his experience, salaries are lower, and necessities like gas cost significantly more. Also, he just likes the American lifestyle better.

“I grew up (with) social media like Vine, YouTube and all that. And I was like, ‘I like it there,’” Taveira said. “And now that I live here, I enjoy it, and I’m trying to stay.”

His fallback plan if he can’t find a job is to go to graduate school, like his American friends. He has been accepted into programs at the University of New Haven and Fairfield University, and both offers came with scholarships. He will need to decide before the start of the school year. 

“College or Bust”

There are certain fields where a bachelor’s degree is essential, like business analytics, but by and large, Connecticut’s labor market problems won’t be solved by more people pursuing higher education. 

In fact, part of Connecticut’s problem is that too many people go to college. According to a report from the CBIA Foundation, there are more people with bachelor’s degrees in Connecticut than there are jobs that require them. CBIA also reported that most of the new jobs that will be created in Connecticut from now until 2034 will not require a college degree.  

Despite that, the Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE) reported that almost 70% of high school graduates in 2025 immediately enrolled in a postsecondary program. Meanwhile, industries that don’t require bachelor’s degrees, like manufacturing and healthcare, are struggling to find workers because people lack the necessary skills for the job. 

“That has to do a lot with sort of our commitment to a ‘college education or bust’ mentality in the state and a lack of coordinated work around creating career and technical education for students,” said CBIA Director Dustin Nord.

Connecticut has a “High School Accountability Index,” which judges a high school’s performance based on 12 indicators. Although “college and career readiness” is one metric, another, more concrete measurement that CSDE uses to rate a school is how many students enroll in postsecondary degree programs after graduation. 

“There’s been a history of good quality education in Connecticut, focused on connecting youth with higher ed opportunities, not necessarily… workforce opportunity,” CBIA CEO Chris DiPentima said. “As a result, we have just dimension policies and policies driving costs. Policies also drive our workforce and education behaviors.”

The rationale behind the college-first mentality is simple: college graduates have higher salaries than high school graduates. It’s not just CSDE officials who push college degrees. Families in Connecticut also push for higher education.  

“My parents came from Ghana, West Africa. My mother didn’t finish sixth grade; my dad didn’t finish middle school. And when they migrated to the United States in the late 1990s. Education was something that was so paramount to them that they really hyper focused that on me and my siblings,” Stratford Town Council Co-Chair Anthony Afriyie told Inside Investigator. “When I went to college, it wasn’t really like I wanted to go. It was because they wanted me to go. (So) I didn’t take it as seriously as I needed to. It wasn’t until I got my graduate degree that I figured out that this is actually something that I want to do. But it took me around 23 years to finally figure that out.”

Afriyie has a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Western Connecticut State University and a Master’s in Urban Development & Sustainability from Baruch College.   

After college, Afriyie took on all sorts of work before starting his first campaign. He had a job in AmeriCorps, a YMCA, the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, and as an Outreach Coordinator for Rep. John Larson, among other things. From there, he decided to run for office.

But a lot of people, and men in particular, are struggling to stick the landing. The national unemployment rate of Gen Z men with college degrees just caught up to the unemployment rate of men without them, for the first time in U.S. history. College degrees are becoming less valuable, and, as unemployment rises, there is more competition in the workforce. At the same time, companies report turning to artificial intelligence to do tasks that were previously performed by entry-level workers. As of 2025, 78% of businesses in the country utilize AI in some form, and the number of entry-level jobs in America has decreased by 35%, in large part because of AI.  

Short- and long-term costs are another factor impacting the financial well-being of graduates. People who go to college often accumulate significant amounts of debt. The average cost of college tuition and fees has increased by 93% in the last 20 years, coinciding with the rise of the “college–for-all” policy focus by state and federal politicians. 

According to the Education Data Initiative, in 2025, over 500,000 students in Connecticut had student loan debt. The average student graduated with more than $36,000 in student loan debt that same year, although many owe significantly more. Nationally, 40% of the 43 million Americans with student loan debt have at least one loan that is currently delinquent. 

Afriyie needed to take out both private and public loans to fund his bachelor’s and later master’s degree. In the last two years, he has paid off $20,000 of his student debt, but he still owes almost $100,000 in student loans—$12,000 for private loans and $86,000 for federal loans. There are student loan forgiveness opportunities for government employees to have portions of their federal loans forgiven.

Although Afriyie doesn’t regret taking out loans for his education, one of his goals as a legislator is to help high school students connect directly with employers so they can get jobs out of college.

“Because student loan debt has definitely raised the cost of going to college, that (college-first) blueprint needs to be altered and maneuvered so that we can really attest to what are the lived conditions of today,” Afriyie said. “Not everybody needs a college degree to be successful in this life because success is very based on how you perceive it.”

Success in Afriyie’s mind includes making a living wage, owning property, and being invested in local communities and the state. 

A high school-to-career pipeline isn’t just good for students and employers; it’s good for the entire state, because it makes it easier for people to stay in Connecticut. There is an affordability crisis driving people out of the state to places that have better wages and a lower cost of living. Student debt exacerbates the problem for those who owe, but debt alone is not the only reason that Connecticut is becoming harder for the average person to live in. 

Not Even “Somewhat Affordable”

After Alexa Green got laid off from her job as a social media producer at the sports marketing agency IMG Digital, she had a choice: stay in Connecticut and find another job, or leave. She chose to leave.

Green is originally from Philadelphia. She left Pennsylvania in college and has been bouncing around the country since then. She had a job in California but got laid off, and then jumped on the next job offer she had, which was in Connecticut at IMG.

She worked at IMG for eleven months before they laid her off, and spent another three months living in the state, struggling to break her rental agreement and get unemployment benefits.

“Am I the biggest fan of the state? No. I have said I would only recommend it to my worst enemy,” Green said. “I wish I had more positive things to say.”

She did concede that the Haitian food was good, and that she loved Stew Leonard’s and the Spacecat Brewing Co. in South Norwalk, where she lived. She also credited Connecticut with getting her to take SSRIs. She started taking medication to manage the stress of jumping through hoops for unemployment benefits and says they have improved her life. 

But overall, her experience was not positive. Part of that was because of her time-consuming job—she worked a 9-5 during the week, and almost all day on Saturday. Because of her long hours, she said she barely saw the state. 

Despite not experiencing all Connecticut has to offer, she had one of the most quintessential experiences a resident can have: barely getting by. Less than 30% of residents think the state is even “somewhat affordable.” 

“Connecticut has grown to be one of the more expensive states in the country. A lot of that is policy-driven. It has to do with housing policy, it has to do with tax policy that has not necessarily been able to keep some of the higher-paying businesses and at the same time has sometimes made it more expensive… to live here,” Nord said. “In recent years we’ve seen considerable wage growth on the private sector side, but the fact that it hasn’t been able to keep up with some of the other costs that we’ve seen grow in the state, I think, is indicative of some of the challenges associated with the cost of living.”

Green’s salary was $70,000 per year, which is slightly below the median income for residents in South Norwalk. She spent one quarter of her income, $2,100 a month, on rent, and then more for utilities. Green was paying for standard utilities: electricity, heating, water, internet, etc., and also communal utilities. For example, her lease required her to contribute to the water costs for her apartment complex’s pool, even though that pool was closed for renovations the entire time she lived there.  

 “I really had trouble with… finding affordable housing. And when people would recommend affordable housing, it either was not safe or clean or up to standards of any sort,” Green said. “So I had a budget of what I wanted my housing to be, and I unfortunately had to go over that. It got to the point where my entire paycheck was going to my studio apartment.”

Green says that Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania in general, is more affordable. Years before she took a job in Connecticut, she was living in a condo with her now-fiancé in Philadelphia. Their rent was only $1,500 a month, and they had a backyard patio and parking spots. 

When she had her job, she got a lot of free food at work, which helped her save money until she got laid off.

After losing her job, she waited weeks for her severance pay and three months for the state to accept her application for unemployment benefits. During that time, she kept falling behind on rent, but she wasn’t allowed to break her lease without paying the remainder of the year’s rent upfront. She was eventually able to work out a deal with her landlord, who let her leave a week before her lease ended. 

Even if she kept her job, she said she was trying to leave that apartment anyway, because her rent would have been raised if she stayed. 

“I lived in South Norwalk because it was an area that kind of reminded me of where I grew up and lived in Philly,” Green said. “But I just was not used to… how expensive Connecticut was.”

There is a severe housing shortage in Connecticut, which is driving up the cost of both buying houses and renting units. It is also one of the major depressants to the economy. 

The rising cost of housing limits where people can live, and by extension, where they can work, a CBIA report found. It is one of the biggest obstacles employers face when hiring workers. It also makes it harder for people to move to new places for new jobs, which hinders economic mobility. Finally, as housing costs increase, people have less disposable income. 

Connecticut needs upwards of 100,000 more housing units, a substantial number of which need to be low-income housing, to meet the current demand. When the housing market crashed during the Great Recession, housing construction plummeted with it. Connecticut has yet to catch up to the pre-2008 construction rate.

Rent isn’t the only major expense residents have to pay.

Nutmeggers pay some of the highest electric bills in the country. Electric rates are so high that they are driving residents and businesses out of the state. Much of this is driven by the public benefits charge, which is added on to electric bills to cover legislative mandates, and other hidden charges. 

Childcare is another major expense that weighs on Connecticut families. The state subsidizes childcare through the public benefits charge and the Early Childhood Endowment Fund, but it is still one of the largest expenses that families with young kids pay. By some estimates, the average family pays between $14,000 and $18,000 a year for childcare.

The high cost of living makes it hard for people to remain in the state. 

CBIA reports found that one of the largest barriers businesses have in retaining employees is the high cost of living in the state. Around 40% of Connecticut residents are considering leaving the state because of the high cost of living.

“A lot of this is policy-driven,” DiPentima said. “There’s some public benefit charge policies that most likely will increase the public benefit charges between now and next January, so energy bills will most likely go up. There were… a couple of things that were passed around childcare and business taxes that were a step forward. (There was also) accelerating housing, and there were a couple of things done for the special session, but not to the level that Dustin (Nord) advocates for and (CBIA) advocates for.”

Although Afriyie says it is important to lower the cost of living, he also believes that there is one more major step that needs to happen: companies need to pay their employees more.

“We need employers to look at the possible candidates and think about ‘how am I going to invest in this person to get a return on investment that grows my business’ instead of, ‘You’re just an able body that’s able to do this job at the rate that I’m willing to pay you,’” he said. 

Connecticut’s minimum wage is tied to economic indicators and is evaluated every year. In January, the minimum wage increased from $16.35 to $16.94. Connecticut also has the 9^th highest corporate tax rate in America. 

During her time working in Connecticut, Green struggled to make ends meet. She said that she didn’t feel like she could save any money because of how expensive everything was in the state.

“Grocery shopping, it would be something that I would get my paycheck, and I would kind of have to navigate,” Green said. “Even if I want to do something fun, I need to pay to put food in my fridge.”

Green had other difficulties in Connecticut: she said the culture, which was very work-centric, didn’t mesh well with her. There were also “extra steps” that she wasn’t used to taking, which also had to do with money. Green wasn’t used to paying for parking wherever she travelled, which was the standard in South Norwalk. She lived 15 minutes from the beach but never made it there because she didn’t have a resident’s pass. 

After she got laid off, she knew that she wanted to leave the state eventually, but she still tried to find a bit of work before her lease was up. 

“I did try to find even a part-time job in Connecticut,” she said. “But I did notice a lot of the people, or at least where I lived, the way they treated people in the service industry made it a little scary.”

Now, she is living in Philadelphia with her fiancé. She is taking a break from job searching for this summer to plan their wedding, focus on her online content, and evaluate the next steps in her career. She’s much more confident about her work prospects in Philadelphia and is planning on buying a house.  

Connecting Workers

Sofia Marroquin sees a bright future for Connecticut. Marroquin is an Australian citizen and an influencer who posts about her travels, her Christian faith, and her efforts to find work on TikTok. Marroquin loves Connecticut and wants to move to the state this year.  

“One of my friends moved back to her hometown, which is in Connecticut, but she was living in Australia for eight years,” Marroquin said. “This was a really good friend of mine, and we figured out that she lived 10 minutes away from my favorite public figure at the time… Cliffe and Stuart Knechtle. I really wanted to go visit, so I came to visit her, and I fell in love with the country in 2024. And then I came back the next year in 2025. (I went) maybe three times back to Connecticut, and I fell in love all over again, and I made this amazing community.” 

Marroquin has been applying to criminology jobs in Connecticut for two years. She has a degree in criminal justice and relevant work experience, but hasn’t gotten any job offers.

After two years of sending out applications, she finally made a breakthrough in her job search. She got invited to an event for influencers and believes that she will be able to find work in the state because of the connections she made.

Although CBIA’s report on career pathways did not lay out any plans for influencers to break into the job market, they propose the same solution that Marroquin figured out on her own: connections. Right now, that is one of the biggest barriers to entry in the job market. 

“If you’re going on Indeed and you’re seeing a million job openings, but which ones are really the ones that you’re qualified for? No networking has happened along the way at all. No internships, no apprenticeships,” DiPentima said. “Imagine how much further behind (people with high school degrees) are than maybe a college graduate who’s actually had some networking opportunities and is still maybe challenged to find a job?”

Employers report having a hard time connecting with workers who have the necessary skills for jobs. The solution that CBIA proposes involves training students in skills required for trades jobs while they are in high school and facilitating internships and apprenticeships so students can find employers before they graduate. 

Some towns have successfully integrated their school systems with local employers. Stratford is one of them.

“We have a partnership with Sikorsky Aircraft where Sikorsky will identify specific kids in our high schools, and those kids will get an internship for a summer,” Afriyie said. “Once they get into the internship, they’ll do another internship, and when they graduate, they’ll automatically get a job at Sikorsky. Whether they’re a welder, whether they’re machinists, it’s literally the perfect model of what we should try to be scaling up in a lot of our other communities.”

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