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Private Employment Rises as Public Jobs Fall in Region

By David Robinson

November 19, 2010
 

The Buffalo Niagara region job market is turning into two very different stories: Private companies are starting to hire more, while government agencies are cutting back.

Put the two together, and the region's overall job market is improving at a slight pace, with jobless levels dropping a bit from the more than 20-year highs recorded last year.

"The economy is in a rebuilding phase," said John Slenker, the state Labor Department's regional economist in Buffalo. "It seems like we're trying to climb out of the recession."

New figures released Thursday by the Labor Department show that the region is starting to make some progress in pulling out of the downturn that hit it more than two years ago.

The unemployment rate in the Buffalo Niagara region held steady at 7.5 percent last month as the region added jobs for the first time in four months, the department reported.

The new figures showed stronger job growth among private businesses in the region, which was partly offset by continued losses in employment at cash-strapped government agencies, which are making do without federal stimulus funding that stabilized their work forces last year.

Now, as questions grow about state aid, those government entities, especially on the local level, are slowly cutting back, often by not replacing departing workers immediately or allowing those positions to go unfilled, Slenker said.

Overall, the region added 1,200 jobs from October 2009 through last month, a 0.2 percent annual increase that broke a string of three straight months of job losses.

Led by hiring in the leisure and hospitality sector and growth in professional and business services occupations, private-sector employment grew for the fifth straight month, rising by 3,100, or 0.7 percent. That more than offset continued weakness in manufacturing and wholesale trade, as well as a drop in employment at local financial services firms.

"One month [of improvement] does not make a trend. But five months? We're getting there," Slenker said.

At the same time, though, the region also lost 1,900 government jobs since October 2009 -- a nearly 2 percent drop -- with most of the decline coming at the local level.

The local unemployment rate was better than the 7.9 percent jobless rate of a year ago but still is the second-highest for any October since the mid-1980s.

The unemployment rate in Erie County held steady for a third straight month at 7.5 percent, while the jobless rate in Niagara County inched up to 7.8 percent from 7.7 percent in September.

The local jobless rates remain well below the seasonally unadjusted national rate of 9 percent and are lower than the statewide unemployment rate of 8 percent.

The Buffalo Niagara region ranks in the middle of the pack for job growth among the state's 13 major metro areas, trailing the New York City, Ithaca, Glens Falls, Nassau-Suffolk and Kingston metro areas.

In more rural portions of Western New York, Wyoming County stood out as a bright spot for the second straight month, with a 2.3 percent increase in jobs over the last year, while Allegany County added jobs at a 1.1 percent annual pace. Cattaraugus County added jobs at a 0.3 percent annual rate, while Genesee County's job base grew by 0.2 percent. On the downside, Chautauqua County lost jobs at a 0.4 percent annual pace.

The Labor Department also issued revised September figures that showed the job loss locally was less severe than originally reported, falling by 700 jobs, rather than the 1,800 initially estimated.

Here are the unemployment rates for October, September and October 2009 for other Western New York counties:

-- Allegany -- 7.9 percent, 7.9 percent and 7.9 percent.

-- Cattaraugus -- 7.9, 7.9 and 8.4.

-- Chautauqua -- 7.5, 7.5 and 7.8.

-- Genesee -- 6.7, 6.4 and 7.2.

-- Orleans -- 8.3, 8.4 and 7.8.

-- Wyoming -- 7.6, 7.4 and 8.1.

 drobinson@buffnews.com