Today’s employment report by the NJ Department of Labor brings bad news for the State economy. Private-sector employment declined by 2,900 jobs for the month, dragging down an already anemic job-growth performance in the private sector, the New Jersey Business & Industry Association said today.

At the current pace of job creation, New Jersey will experience a job-growth rate of less than 1 percent for the full year. For the first ten months of the year, New Jersey’s private-sector employers have added only 25,800 jobs. At this rate of growth, New Jersey can expect to add just about as many private-sector jobs as it added in 2004, which was 31,300, a gain of less than 1 percent. This is well below the rate of employment growth for the nation as a whole. It is also well below the rate of job growth in New Jersey’s past two economic expansions.

“We’re seeing a slowdown in an already slow employment recovery. This is disappointing news for the New Jersey economy,” said NJBIA President Philip Kirschner.
“New Jersey has fallen behind the nation. Come January, Governor-elect Jon Corzine and the Legislature must make economic development and job growth their top priority.”

The October job losses in the private sector were concentrated primarily in manufacturing, which lost 2,200 jobs, giving that sector a total loss so far this year of 12,100 jobs or -3.6 percent. Also losing jobs in October was the construction industry, which fell by 2,100 and is now down by 4,700 jobs or 2.8 percent for the year. The dominant services sector gained 1,400 for the month and is now up by 42,700 jobs or 1.5 percent for the year. As of October, total private-sector employment in New Jersey stood at 3,417,200.

The current rate of job growth is one the slowest of the last 50 years for New Jersey, according to a recent analysis by Rutgers University professors Jim Hughes and Joe Seneca.

On an annualized basis, New Jersey has added fewer than 20,000 private-sector jobs a year since July 2002, the month that marks the end of the last recession. That is well below the nearly 50,000 jobs a year created in the early years of the 1990s expansion and the more than 100,000 jobs a year created in the 1980s expansion.

It also puts New Jersey well behind the nation as a whole. In 2004, New Jersey was ranked 41st in the nation in its rate of private-sector job creation. So far, this year, the Garden State’s rate of job growth — at 0.76 percent for the first ten months of the year — is less than the nation’s rate of employment growth of 1.3 percent.

With more than 23,000 member companies, NJBIA is the nation’s largest state-level employer association. NJBIA tracks private-sector employment growth in New Jersey, providing regular commentary on this and other economic trends. Overall job growth in New Jersey is somewhat higher when public-sector jobs are added back in. However, public-sector job growth, because it is supported by State and local tax revenues, gives a less accurate picture of the state’s true economic health.

See full employment report.