GSI Analysis: June ’20 Jobs Report – Despite Rise in Unemployment Rate, Sectors Most Impacted by Pandemic Report Begin Recovery

On July 16th, New Jersey’s Department of Labor and Workforce Development issued the monthly jobs report for June 2020.

Dr. Charles Steindel, former Chief Economist of the State of New Jersey and current Resident Scholar, Anisfield School of Business at Ramapo College, analyzed the report for GSI:

“The record gain of nearly 130,000 jobs in June is welcome news, of course. However, June’s job total remains more than 600,000 under the February peak. The sharp increase in payrolls in May and June were centered in sectors that had been unusually affected by the shutdown, and rebounded as limited re-openings began in retail, health care, and the leisure and hospitality sectors. It seems likely that growth will start to slow, particularly as outbreaks elsewhere in the nation have raised concerns and risks of renewed restrictions on activity.

June’s pronounced drop in resident employment and with it the associated rise in the unemployment rate look to mainly reflect the difficulty of estimating monthly changes. The February to June declines in the job count and resident employment have been almost equal.”

Despite the gains in jobs, the state’s unemployment rate rose by 1.2 percentage points to 16.6%. New Jersey’s unemployment remains higher than the United States as a whole 11.1%

According to the press release issued by the state, total nonfarm wage and salary employment in New Jersey increased by 130,900 in June to a seasonally adjusted level of 3,630,400 according to estimates released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The gains reported in May and June represents a little over 26% of the number of jobs lost in March and April due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures taken in response to it.

In June, job gains were recorded in 8 out of 9 major private industry sectors. In order, the largest gains were recorded in trade, transportation, and utilities (+41,800), leisure and hospitality (+35,300), education and health services (+33,000), other services (+7,400), construction (+7,100), professional and business services (+6,700), manufacturing (+3,300), and information (+200). The only sector to record a loss over the month was financial activities (-700). Over the month, public sector employment was lower by 3,300, with the losses concentrated at the local level (-4,800).