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Region’s Job Growth Continued in May

Private sector hiring offsets decline in government posts

By David Robinson

Published:
June 17, 2011 

The slow and steady job growth in the Buffalo Niagara region continued during May, fueled by stronger private sector hiring that offset an accelerating decline in government jobs.

The two-county region added 2,200 jobs over the last year — a 0.4 percent annual growth rate that was the third-strongest among the state’s 13 major metropolitan areas during May, the state Labor Department reported Thursday.

The May increase was the ninth consecutive month of job growth for the Buffalo Niagara region as it continues its slow recovery from the recession. The private sector, which excludes government agencies, has grown for 14 straight months.

While the May job growth was slightly better than the 0.3 percent increase statewide, it was well below the 0.7 percent increase nationally. That’s a concern because the Buffalo Niagara region traditionally has lagged far behind the rest of the country in job growth during periods of economic growth.

The local job market got a big boost from strong seasonal hiring by construction firms, while stores and local restaurants and hotels also were a significant source of new jobs. Construction firms have 4 percent more workers than they did a year ago, while hiring by retailers has increased by 3 percent. Seasonal hiring also has been strong at local leisure and hospitality firms, which have 4.5 percent more jobs than a year ago.

That offset an accelerating decline in government jobs, which tumbled by 2.6 percent partly because last year’s figures, inflated by temporary census jobs, fueled a surge in federal hiring last spring. Without those census jobs, federal employment is down almost 20 percent from a year ago. Federal employment locally fell to a more than 20-year low in May and is down almost 8 percent from two years ago.

But the weakness in government jobs wasn’t limited to the federal level, as cash-strapped agencies scrambled to cut costs. The number of state jobs slid by nearly 3 percent over the last year, while employment at local schools was down 4 percent.

That weakness offset moderate strength in the private sector, which added 4,800 jobs over the last year to grow at a 1.1 percent annual pace.

And the Buffalo Niagara region had some of the strongest job growth

among the state’s metro areas during May, trailing only the gains in Rochester and Ithaca.

Still, the region has a long way to go to recover all of the jobs it lost during the recession. Even with the recent hiring, the Buffalo Niagara region still has 11,700 fewer jobs than it did in May 2008, before the recession started hitting the local job market. At the current rate of job growth, it would take more than five years to recover all of the jobs that were lost during the recession.

The pace of job growth was far weaker in rural portions of Western New York, where Genesee County fared the best with a stable job count. Wyoming County fared the worst, losing 1.5 percent of its jobs over the last year, while the decline hit 1.1 percent in Chautauqua County. Allegany and Cattaraugus counties each lost jobs at a 0.6 percent annual rate.

drobinson@buffnews.com