Regional job growth stalls - Westfair Communications

In June, the seasonally-unadjusted unemployment rate for Westchester County increased to 6.8 percent, up 0.4 percent from May, despite an increase of 6,200 in the number of employed county residents.

The job gains were offset by an increase of 2,400 in the number of unemployed county residents.

The 6.8 percent unemployment mark was a slight improvement from June 2010, when Westchester notched an unemployment rate of 7 percent. Over the same time period, the state”™s unemployment rate has dropped from a seasonally-unadjusted 8.4 percent to 8 percent.

Westchester, Putnam and Rockland counties saw a net gain of 5,900 in total nonfarm jobs from May to June compared with a net gain of just 1,200 nonfarm jobs from June 2010 to June 2011.

“In this economy to have any job growth is a positive sign,” said Laurence Gottlieb, director of the Office of Economic Development for Westchester County. He said that the gains are particularly significant at a time when “many parts of the United States are suffering through what I”™d call an economic Armageddon.”

Job growth, both in the state and in the region including Westchester County, was held back by losses in the public sector. While New York state saw net jobs gains in the private sector of 13,600 from May to June and of 113,600 from June 2010 to June 2011, the government sector posted net losses of 10,700 positions from May to June and of 61,000 positions over the past year.

Similarly, government sector jobs in the three-county region that includes Westchester posted year-over-year net losses of 3,200 from June 2010 to June 2011, nearly erasing the net gain of 4,400 private sector jobs during that period for Westchester, Rockland and Putnam.

“A major concern is still the downward spiral of government jobs,” said Johny Nelson, labor market analyst for the Hudson Valley region of the state Department of Labor. He said that unemployment rates historically have posted slight increases from May to June that coincide with the end of the academic year.

Among the private sector industries, the service-providing industries saw the biggest gains, while goods-producing industries took the biggest hits over the past year.

Private service providers saw annual net gains of 7,900 jobs, including gains of 1,800 jobs in the trade, transportation and utilities industries; gains of 2,900 jobs in private education and health services; and gains of 2,800 jobs in the leisure and hospitality industries.

Lagging were the natural resources, mining and, far more important regionally, construction industries, which posted a year-over-year net loss of 2,800 jobs, and the manufacturing industry, which posted a net loss of 700 jobs over the past year.

Gottlieb said that Westchester, like other regions, has been faced with cutting government spending and that the county has been forced to shed positions as a result. He said that it is important to incorporate those individuals into the private sector and praised the county”™s highly educated workforce as a mechanism to achieving that goal.

“[For] those that had college degrees and those that had advanced degrees, the average unemployment rate was significantly less,” Gottlieb said. “That”™s important for an area like Westchester ”¦ We tend to take more advantage of the upswing in those trends than other parts of the country or other parts of the state.”

Nationally, the unemployment rate for individuals with a bachelor”™s degree is 6.1 percent and the unemployment rate for those with a master”™s degree or higher is just 3.2 percent.

According to a survey conducted by the Web site CareerBuilder.com, the number of small businesses planning to hire full-time, permanent employees from July through December increased by 6 percent when compared to the same period of 2010.

Among those businesses surveyed with fewer than 50 employees, 20 percent said that they planned to hire full-time employees over the next six months, up from just 14 percent who said they would do so last year.

For larger companies, hiring looks to be more robust in the next six months, with 46 percent of the businesses surveyed by CareerBuilder saying they would hire full-time employees over the next six months, up from 38 percent last year.

Ted Miller, president of DataKey Consulting L.L.C. in Mount Kisco, said that confidence has been consistently on the rise among Westchester business owners.

DataKey produces a quarterly Westchester Business Confidence Index that surveys hundreds of businesses of varying size and that has observed increases over the past five quarters. Currently, the confidence rating is a 66.3 on a scale of 1 to 100, whereas the index was at a 27 when it was first calculated in the fourth quarter of 2008.

“A take-away off of that is that two-thirds of these business owners are somewhat confident and optimistic about the business environment compared to 10 quarters ago when three-quarters of them were decimated here,” Miller said. “Looking at the pattern, you get five or six data points in a row across several hundred independent business owners trending up ”“ that”™s significant. It”™s not roaring back, but people are accepting of the general business climate.”

He said that business owners have adjusted to the tight economy, and that they have started to pick up hiring as a result, citing the private education sector and the biotech industry as particularly strong areas.

“Higher education along with the higher-end jobs is a pretty positive thing for the region to be focused on,” Miller said. He added that much of the hiring is variable hiring of contract or part-time workers, making the contract labor market a safe bet in the region.