The leisure and hospitality industry launched the summer season in Westchester, Rockland and Orange counties by adding 4,100 jobs in June from its employee numbers a year earlier. That was a 6.1 percent gain and the fastest growth in that sector ever recorded in the three-county labor market, according to the state Labor Department.
Hotels, bars and restaurants in June added workers throughout the seven-county Hudson Valley region, where 3,800 more workers were on payrolls last month than in June 2014, a 4.1 percent increase. The region”™s leisure and hospitality industry last month added 6,800 jobs from May, a 7.6 percent monthly increase.
Overall, the private-sector job count in the Hudson Valley stood at 769,000 jobs in June, according to the state Labor Department”™s Division of Research and Statistics. The region”™s private-sector employment was up 1.2 percent from June 2014.
June hiring in the Hudson Valley showed slower growth than statewide activity in the private sector. Private employers across the state added 173,5000 jobs last month compared with June last year, a 2.3 percent increase. State labor officials put the state”™s total private-sector job count in June at 7,880,400, the highest on record.
In the Westchester-Rockland-Orange area, the push by the federal government and private medical practices, hospitals and insurers to provide more ambulatory health care services drove a 7.7 percent gain in those jobs in the tricounty area in June, when 3,200 more ambulatory care positions were filled than a year ago. That hiring activity contributed to a 5.1 percent year-over-year increase in educational and health services jobs in the three-county labor market, with a net 7,000 jobs added since June 2014.
Across the lower and middle Hudson Valley, the educational and health services sector continued to be the region”™s leading job generator in June, when 7,300 jobs were added from a year earlier, a 3.9 percent increase. That was the sector”™s strongest year-over-year growth for June since 1999, said James Brown, labor market analyst at the state Labor Department in New York City.
The region”™s manufacturing and financial services sectors in June again sustained the largest job losses in the Hudson Valley region. Manufacturers lost 1,300 jobs from June 2014 through last month, a 2.8 percent decrease. The financial activities sector shed 1,100 jobs in June from the same month last year, a 2.4 percent decline. Most of those eliminated jobs, 800, were in finance and insurance.
The seven-county region”™s information sector in June showed the largest percentage decline from 2014, with 900 fewer jobs than the industry supported a year ago, a 5.2 percent decline. All but 100 of those eliminated information jobs were in Westchester, Putnam and Orange counties, where that employment sector in June shrank 5.7 percent from a year ago.
