Layoffs Plague Northern New Jersey

From the Record/Herald:

Factory layoffs plague region

Bergen, Passaic and Hudson counties lost a combined 4,700 jobs from June 2005 to June 2006, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday.

It was the region's biggest 12-month job loss since the period ended March 2004, and another sign that the employment picture in the Garden State is less promising than the national outlook. The Newark-Union area, which includes Morris County, lost 4,200 jobs in the 12-month period.

The North Jersey job losses are seen in factories and business services such as employment agencies, as well as in construction and mortgage finance, which have been hurt by the housing slowdown.

"The steam has gone out of the recovery," said Martin Kohli, an economist with the BLS in New York. The BLS releases data on jobs in the nation's largest metropolitan areas every quarter.

According to the BLS report, the overall New York metropolitan area, which includes 23 counties in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, saw jobs grow at a rate of 0.9 percent from June 2005 to June 2006, lower than the national growth rate of 1.4 percent. More than 8.5 million people work in the metropolitan area.
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The job picture has also affected the North Jersey office market. Vacancy rates for offices in northern New Jersey are around 18 percent, according to a recent report from the commercial brokerage firm Cushman & Wakefield.

That rate has shown little improvement since the recession of 2001, because hiring has been so sluggish.
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Underperforming the U.S. average were Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Boston, New York and Detroit. Detroit actually lost jobs in the period.