Slighter better compare to other cities in the state and much better than national rate.
Private sector fuels Capital Region job growth as public jobs sag
Private sector fuels growth in region as jobless rate lowest since April 2009
By CHRIS CHURCHILL Business writer
Published 12:20 a.m., Wednesday, September 21, 2011ALBANY – Unemployment in the Capital Region fell in August to its lowest rate in more than two years on the strength of private-sector hiring.
The region’s jobless rate dropped to 6.7 percent, the state Department of Labor said Tuesday. That’s a decline from 7.2 percent for the same month a year ago and is the lowest level since the identical rate in April 2009.
The region has added more than 4,000 private-sector jobs over the last year, suggesting the slowly recovering economy is finally beginning to affect local employment. The area’s rate of joblessness in July, at 7 percent, was also improved from the year-ago level.
Yet James Ross, who analyzes regional data for the labor department, cautioned against reading too much into the numbers. He stopped well short of suggesting the new data mean the area’s economy has turned a corner.
“It is improving, and it’s better than last year,” Ross said. “But unemployment is still stuck at an historically high level.”
Ross noted that August unemployment was dramatically higher than the rate for the month just four years ago, when it was 3.9 percent.
The numbers measure the percentage of people who are unemployed and looking for work. Official unemployment rates are an undercount of actual joblessness, because they do not include those who have stopped looking or people who are working several jobs to make ends meet.
Most analysts believe it will be several years, at best, before unemployment rates, locally and nationally, return to levels seen before the 2008 financial meltdown and subsequent recession.
“Households continue to reduce debt and save as opposed to buying and spending,” said Hugh Johnson, chairman and chief investment officer at Albany-based Johnson Illington Advisors. “As a result, this has been a long, slow recovery, and employment growth has also been slow.”
High unemployment’s firm grip led President Barack Obama to offer a $475 billion jobs plan that would cut payroll taxes, among other steps, as a way to boost hiring.
Johnson predicts the jobs bill, if passed by Congress, would have only a modest economic impact, cutting the unemployment rate by 0.2 percent in 2012 and another 0.2 percent in 2013.
The Capital Region’s August 6.7 percent unemployment remained well below the national rate of 9.1 percent, without seasonal adjustment. It was also under the New York state rate of 7.7 percent.
Labor department data show education and hospitals continue to be a Capital Region bright spot. Those fields added 6,700 jobs over the last year.
State and local government, meanwhile, remain an area of shrinking employment. The sector lost 2,600 jobs over the year as governments wrestled with tight budgets.
The August numbers were not afftected by the effects of Tropical Storm Irene, which put some residents out of work but might boost the struggling construction sector.
Striking Verizon workers, however, did impact the numbers, reducing overall job counts by nearly 1,000 jobs. Yet the strike was not a factor in the unemployment rate.
Reach Churchill at 454-5442 or cchurchill@timesunion.com.
Picture improves
Nearly every metropolitan area in the state had an unemployment rate drop during the last year, while the national jobless rate in August remained significantly higher than New York’s:
region Aug. '11 Aug. '10
Capital Region 6.7% 7.2%
Buffalo area 7.3% 7.9%
Glens Falls area 6.5% 6.7%
New York City 8.7% 9.4%
Rochester 7.1% 7.7%
Syracuse 7.4% 8.0%
Statewide 7.7& 8.3%
U.S. 9.1% 9.5%
Note: Numbers are not seasonally adjusted
Source: New York Department of Labor