GSI Analysis: New Jersey Labor Market Continued to Improve in April

• Unemployment rate moved down to 4.8%–its fourth straight drop.
• Job count rose 5,600, though numbers of sectors shed jobs, and followed a downward revision to March.

New Jersey’s labor market had a slight whiff of spring in April The state’s unemployment rate fell to 4.8%. This was the fourth straight month that the rate dropped, and it is now a fairly far cry from last summer’s peak of 5.5%. Still, there remains some gap from the national rate of 4.3% (though much closer to New York’s 4.6%), and about half the decline in unemployment in April was due to another drop (the fifth in a row) in the state’s labor force. It’s possible that this decline may be in part due to the change in federal immigration policy and enforcement.

April saw a fairly decent rise of 5,600 jobs (almost all private; government employment edged up only 100). The increase was centered in professional and business services (up 5,900) and education and health services (up 2,600). However, there was a marked drop of 1,500 in construction and 3,300 in leisure and hospitality. It’s possible that the changes in immigration are particularly evident in these sectors. Nevertheless, much of the increase in professional and business services was in administrative support, which includes cleaners and groundskeepers—two areas also immigrant-intensive.

The increase in jobs in April was significantly offset by a 2.700 downward revision to the March estimate, and the number of jobs in April was less than 4,000 higher than in April 2025 (this is on a base of more than 4 million). The April total was almost 7,000 lower than the May 2025 peak. In sum, taken in isolation the April report was on the positive side, there were enough negatives to indicate that the job market is not in full bloom. However, New Jersey’s April report was noticeably better than New York, which reported a 10,600 drop in jobs.