Tewksbury residents are receiving two early Christmas gifts from the state in terms of positive economic data.

Officials from the Department of Revenue are announcing that that income tax rate will be lowered on Jan. 1, 2012. The rate, currently at 5.3 percent, will fall to 5.25 because state tax collections rose at a sufficient rate to trigger the reduction.

“This is great news for the taxpayers of Massachusetts,” _said state Sen. Barry Finegold._ “Growing revenues have allowed the state to give taxpayers a break, something that is much valued in these tough economic times. Being that this is the first tax cut in 10 years, I think that says a lot about the stability of the Commonwealth at this time.”

The second piece of good news comes from the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development, which announced Massachusetts businesses added 5,000 new jobs in the month of November, helping to slice the unemployment rate in the Bay State to 7.0 percent. That's down from 7.3 percent in October, 8.3 percent in December 2010.

It is the lowest the Massachusetts unemployment rate has been since December 2008.

Local unemployment figures for November are not yet available. Tewksbury's jobless rate stood at 5.9 percent in October.