Education and health services employment continued to spur modest job growth this summer in the seven-county Hudson Valley region, adding 7,200 jobs in that sector”™s strongest year-to-year increase for July in 17 years, according to the state Labor Department.
The region’s private sector added a net total of 10,500 jobs in July from a year ago, a 1.4 percent increase. A total of 9,100 private-sector jobs were added  last month in the region’s Orange-Rockland-Westchester labor  market, up 1.6 percent from July last year. The region’s  total private-sector job count stood at 780,000 in July.
The leisure and hospitality industry grew by 6.2 percent in July in Westchester, Rockland and Orange counties, its fastest July year-to-year growth on record, said labor market analyst Johny Nelson at the state Department of Labor in White Plains. The industry added 4,300 jobs last month in the three-county area.
The education and health services industry in Westchester, Rockland and Orange counties netted 6,500 additional jobs in July, a 4.8 percent increase from  July 2014.
The Hudson Valley’s financial services sector experienced another month of employment cuts, losing 1,700 jobs in July, a 3.7 percent decrease from a year ago. That sector”™s job losses were closely followed by the region’s long-struggling manufacturing industry, which lost 1,500 workers last month compared with July 2014, a 3.3 percent decrease.
In the Orange-Rockland-Westchester labor market, the financial activities sector shed 1,500 jobs in July from a year ago, a 4 percent decrease. As in June, most of the jobs eliminated in that sector were in finance and insurance, which decreased by 1,200 jobs in July, down 4.9 percent from July 2014.
Beyond the private sector, government shed 1,000 jobs in the seven-county region last month compared with July last year, bringing the total of federal state and local government jobs in the Hudson Valley to 155,400. There were 700 fewer government jobs in Orange, Rockland and Westchester counties in July from the previous year, with a total of 111,600 government workers employed last month.
