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Region’s job market looking a little better

Unemployment rate dips for second straight month

By David Robinson
NEWS BUSINESS REPORTER

December 18, 2009

 A few bright spots are appearing in a Buffalo Niagara job market that had been shrouded in gloom for most of the last year.

The unemployment rate in the Buffalo Niagara region slipped to 8 percent in November as the pace of job losses slowed, the state Labor Department said Thursday.

While the region has lost 13,800 jobs over the last year, the annual rate of the decline, which had peaked at 3 percent in September, slowed for the second straight month to 2.5 percent in November.

Even more encouraging, the Labor Deparment revised its October jobs data to indicate that the rate of decline began to slow in the early fall, with annual job losses running roughly 1,300 less than originally estimated.

The region also gained 900 jobs from October to November. While that was less than the average 1,400-job gain over the last 10 years, it was within a range that is close to normal for the period, said John Slenker, the Labor Department’s regional economist in Buffalo.

“Things look a little better,” Slenker said, stopping short of calling the November numbers a sign that the job market has stopped its decline. “We’re getting some improvement.”

Slenker said the statistics indicate that the local job market could be starting to stabilize, although it’s too soon to say that with a large degree of certainty. And the recession has cost the region so many jobs, it will likely take years for the local job market to rebound to its prerecession levels.

“We have to level off before we start growing again,” Slenker said.

One reason for the slowdown in the rate of decline over the last year is that the local job market began to cool last fall, as the recession began to hit the Buffalo Niagara region. That makes the comparisons less severe because the decline already had begun a year ago.

Still, the job market is in its worst shape in 15 years. In all, the region lost 13,800 jobs over the last year, leaving the area with 545,400 jobs, the fewest for any November since 1994.

The unemployment rate in the Buffalo Niagara region improved to 8 percent, which was better than the 8.2 percent jobless rate in October but still the area’s highest since the mid- 1980s. But that bucked the historic trend that usually sees jobless rates rise from October to November as the labor force traditionally swells, and it was better than the seasonally adjusted unemployment rates of 8.4 percent for the state and 9.4 percent for the country. A year ago, the local jobless rate stood at 6.3 percent.

The 2.5 percent pace of job losses in the Buffalo Niagara region was tied for the third-fastest among the state’s 13 major metro areas, with only Glens Falls and Nassau-Suffolk counties shedding jobs more rapidly. The region is losing jobs faster than the state, which has shed 2.4 percent of its jobs over the last year, but is faring better than the nation as a whole, where the decline in jobs is running at a 3.5 percent annual rate.

Rural portions of Western New York are faring better than the Buffalo Niagara region. Job losses were most severe in Allegany County, where they fell by 2.2 percent, followed by a 1.2 percent decline in Cattaraugus County and a 0.7 percent drop in Chautauqua County. The number of jobs in Wyoming County was flat.

Genesee County added jobs at a 0.4 percent annual rate, its second straight monthly gain and the only rural county to increase employment during November.

More than four out of every 10 job losses in the Buffalo Niagara region came from local manufacturers and construction firms, which have been hit especially hard by the recession and tight credit markets. The region had nearly 6 percent fewer construction jobs last month than it did in November 2008, while factory employment was down slightly more than 8 percent, with declines at the local auto plants accounting for a significant portion of the drop.

Employment also was weak at local stores and wholesalers, which had 3 percent fewer jobs than they did a year ago with consumers cutting back on their spending as credit tightened and job losses mounted. Still, Slenker said holiday-related hiring at local stores appeared to be fairly close to normal this year.

Among the few bright spots in the local job market were a 4 percent increase in professional, scientific and technical jobs, as well as a nearly 1 percent increase in education and health services employment. Other services grew by more than 1 percent. The jobless rate in Erie County dropped from 8.1 percent to 7.8 percent in October. In Niagara County, the unemployment rate inched up from 8.6 percent to 8.7 percent in October. Here are the unemployment rates in other Western New York counties for November, October and November 2008:

• Allegany — 8.1 percent, 8.1 percent and 6.7 percent.

• Cattaraugus — 8.6, 8.7 and 6.7.

• Chautauqua — 7.8, 7.7 and 6.1.

• Genesee — 7.4, 7.3 and 6.2.

• Orleans — 8.3, 7.9 and 7.2.

• Wyoming — 8.6, 8 and 7.2.

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