With a strong showing in May and July, New Jersey added 12,900 jobs in the private sector in the first seven months of the year, putting the State on track to add about 26,000 jobs in 2007.

While New Jersey’s rate of job growth remains weak (about half that of the nation’s), the good news is that employment in the Garden State has grown for three consecutive months for the first time in over a year.

Private-sector employers added 6,300 jobs in May, 1,300 in June and 4,800 in July, according to data released by the NJ Department of Labor & Workforce Development.   This has brought total private-sector employment to a record 3,446,600.

Meanwhile, New Jersey’s unemployment rate moved up to 4.6 percent in July (the same as the nation) from 4.3 percent in the preceding four months. (It is not unusual for statewide employment and the unemployment rate to move in opposite directions in any given month as they are based on different statistical surveys.)

 “This is the first time we’ve enjoyed three straight months of employment growth in over a year.  It’s good to see New Jersey moving in the right direction,” said NJBIA President Philip Kirschner.

All of the gains seen in the first seven months of the year came in the services sector, which accounts for 85 percent of all private employment in the State. Employment in that sector is up by 15,700 jobs since the start of the year, a gain of one half of one percent. This gain has been somewhat offset by moderate losses in construction (-1,000) and manufacturing (-1,700). (See Table)

The biggest service-sector gains have come in professional and business services (up by 6,400 jobs through July), education and health (4,800 jobs), and leisure and hospitality (1,600 jobs).  Information services (which includes computer services) is down by 1,400 jobs. (See Table)

Since the start of the current expansion in 2003, New Jersey has added an average of about 23,000 new private-sector jobs on an annualized basis.  This remains well below the average of about 70,000 added annually in the expansions of the 1980s and 1990s, and it is about half of the State’s long-term post WWII average. (See Chart)

Regional economists and business groups, including NJBIA, say there is a great deal of evidence, supported by national surveys, that the high cost of doing business in New Jersey is putting a damper on business expansion and job growth.

The addition of 12,900 new private-sector jobs in New Jersey translates into a growth rate of 0.3 percent for the first seven months of the year.  In contrast, private-sector employment in the nation as a whole has grown more than twice as fast, with 842,000 jobs being added over the same period, a gain of 0.7 percent.

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