- Unemployment rate remains 4.6% for the 9th straight month.
- Large 19,200 increase in jobs mainly due to an odd 12,600 increase in government employment.
- January jobs revised down.
New Jersey’s February unemployment rate remained stuck at 4.6%–the same as in every month since last July. The state’s labor force and count of employed residents were basically unchanged from January.
On the surface, the job numbers were much better, with a very large 19,200 gain. However, that increase mostly reflects a very unusual increase of 12,600 (about 2%) in government employment. We should not assume that there is a sudden expansion in government. Rather, there was a peculiar 7,400 drop in government in January (originally reported as a loss of 12,000). Most likely, the odd moves in January and February are statistical artifacts, though the February level of government employment is a bit higher than seen in recent years.
In the private sector, February saw an increase of 6,600 from January’s revised figure. Most sectors saw modest to moderate gains, though finance sector jobs fell by 1,200. Perhaps more notable, though, is that there was a large downward revision of 9,500 in the estimate of private sector jobs in January. The downward revision was particular evident in professional and business services, not only in administrative support (which includes work such as groundskeeping and waste management) but also the more critical professional, scientific, and business services area. In a nutshell, despite the favorable headline job result, taken together the start of the year was soft for New Jersey’s private sector, with February’s level a mere 3,000 higher than December’s.
New York state reports that its February unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.3%. New York’s private sector gain of 3,700 was smaller than New Jersey’s, absolutely and even more so in percentage terms. However, New York’s increase of 11,200 private jobs since December is somewhat better than New Jersey’s.
