A shift in the job market?
Check out the Capital Region's unemployment rate over the first half of this year, in the table above. (The state Department of Labor released June's numbers this week.)
The state's numbers for metro areas are not seasonally adjusted, so the best comparison for a month is the same month the year before (or before that and so on). After a small increase in January, each month since has registered a bigger decline from its counterpart the year before
Six months isn't necessarily a lot of a time, but it looks like an encouraging trend. And maybe it is. Another way of looking at the situation is to count how many people are employed, as opposed to unemployed.* We've put together those numbers for the Capital Region over the same period in a table after the jump. The picture from that angle is not quite as bright, though June did register a nice increase.
One (another) thing that would be interesting to know: How the pay of these new jobs compares to that of the jobs people previously had.
Saratoga County: It tied Tompkins County (Ithaca) for lowest unemployment rate in the state in June, at 5.7 percent.
New York State: The state's unemployment rate was 7.5 percent in June, the lowest mark since February 2009. It was down from 7.6 in May, and 8.7 in June 2012. (Statewide rates are seasonally adjusted.) The state added 93,800 non-farm jobs between June 2012 and June 2013, an increase of 1.1 percent.
Number of people employed in the Capital Region
* In this context, unemployed means a person who's actively seeking a job but doesn't have one. So that doesn't include someone who's dropped out of the workforce to go to school or because of a family/life decision (like taking staying home to take care of a kid).
Numbers from the NYS DOL: June | May | April | March | February | January.
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It's a shift in the job market alright -- a shift downward, I suspect.
Per the TU: "Companies that laid off people during the recession are looking to refill positions," said [Tom McKenna, managing partner at OI Partners-McKenna & Associates, an outplacement firm in Albany] Tuesday. But he said job seekers have been receiving offers that in many cases are lower than what they previously earned as budgets continue to be tight.
... said Bob on Jul 24, 2013 at 8:08 PM | link