There are more workers and fewer jobs for people living in the Hudson Valley. And such bad news may be even worse than it seems, with the true unemployment rate in this area well above 10 percent and no sign of a better situation developing.
“The region lacks the job creation necessary to sustain individuals and families, with no dramatic change for the better on the horizon,” said Marist Bureau of Economic Research Director Christy Huebner Caridi.
The bureau survey of economic activity for the third quarter of 2009 shows a growing work force in the Hudson Valley, but a greater dependence on employment in New York City and the Capital District. Meanwhile there are more workers here seeking employment in a shrinking pool of jobs.
The survey found that across the Hudson Valley the labor force has grown from 1.2 million in December 2007, the peak of the previous business cycle, to 1.23 million participants in the third quarter of 2009, a 2.42 percent increase in the size of the workforce.
Yet, at the same time private sector employment statewide has dropped from 798,500 in December 2007 to 770,200 in October 2009, a 3.54 percent decline. And regionally jobs in the goods-producing and service sectors have dropped.Â
The “goods-producing industries,” are non-farm jobs in the construction, manufacturing and utility sectors. Such jobs currently represent 11.53 percent of all nonfarm employment in the Hudson Valley, but the number of jobs has fallen by 9,800 since December 2007, down 8.2 percent. And even in the low-paying service sector, the number of jobs has fallen by 19,300 since 2007, a 2.24 percent decline. The data reflect the picture in seven counties: Westchester, Putnam, Rockland, Orange, Ulster, Dutchess and Sullivan.
Caridi said that the upsurge in job seekers within the Hudson Valley could be a sign of the times. She said there is little hard data yet, but indications are the newcomers to the job market are people who already lived here but now find it necessary to get a job. She said senior citizens and formerly retired persons as well as spouses whose partners had heretofore made enough money to support the household are likely the source of the upsurge in job-seekers.
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Yet, they are seeking jobs at a time when there is a vast pool of unemployed labor in the Hudson Valley. The official unemployment rate for the region is around 7.5 percent but   ?that figure is a minimal count since it does not include people who are no longer seeking work. “They are called discouraged workers,” said Caridi, who said there is little hard information on their numbers, but enough is available for her to conclude that the unemployment figures do not accurately depict the scope of the jobs problem.
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“If we were to add the discouraged workers who have been looking for work and not found any and have just plain given up, and those who are involuntarily part-time employees ”“ that is the underemployed ”“ and this is an absolute guess, in this region you probably have an unemployment rate of around 12 percent,” Caridi said.
She said that the breadth of the economic weakness and personal difficulty created by unemployment does not translate well to statistics, but is more far reaching than numbers can portray. She said the average household size in this region is 2.4 people per home, and in most cases, there are “two breadwinners per household,” that is two employed people. “So you need to consider when one of those persons is unemployed, an additional 1.4 people are directly effected by the fact someone lost their job,” Caridi said. “So when you factor in all the people directly influenced by job loss, it becomes a much larger problem.”
She said the fact the pool of people seeking jobs is growing during a recession is contrary to past experience as well as contrary to economic theory, and is another strong indication that times are tough on Main Street.
“During recessions, wages and benefits tend to fall so it is not a good time to start a new career or enter the labor force because your base salary is going to be lower than had you entered on an upswing and you are never going to recoup that difference,” said Caridi.
“So economic theory says don”™t enter the work force now because of this problem, but in practice, people are still seeking jobs. So there seems to be a tremendous amount of stress in the household sector.” Â
“There is a tremendous push to rebuild wealth,” Caridi said, with people either seeking to make up for lost household savings and investments or by cutting down on their debt load. “People are trying to restore the wealth balances that were harmed by current recession,” Caridi said. “There are many people who were getting ready to retire who are doing just that.”
The trends are not encouraging, she said. An economy is not like a tropical storm that will eventually yield to natural forces, she said, but instead must be acted upon to change its makeup and direction. But currently, she said, the global economy is losing its ability to create employment in the industrial nations and there is no apparent action to change that dynamic.
“It”™s not just here, it”™s a global problem in the industrialized nations,” said Caridi. “We seem to be having a tremendous problem employing our labor force and every recession we”™ve gone through in the last 20 years it takes us longer and longer to return to full employment levels.”
