Thursday, September 17, 2009

More Unemployment Dipsy-Doodles

New Jersey's jobless rate hit a 33-year high in August, climbing to 9.7 percent, which also happens to be the national average. New Jersey also gained the sum total of 800 jobs in August.

How can these two things both be true? It's our old friend the revised estimate of earlier results. When the state's Labor and Workforce Development Department released the August figures, it also revised its estimate of July's unemployment figures. A month ago, the department thought New Jersey had added 5,900 jobs; now it thinks we actually lost 500 jobs in July. Hence the new unemployment rate is much worse than what had been reported for July, which was 9.3 percent. It's not clear what the July unemployment rate really was, but it was worse than 9.3 percent.

Still, there's more good news here than bad. The 800 jobs we gained in July balance out to 2,900 gained in the private sector and 2,100 lost in the public sector, mostly as cities and towns lay off people in reaction to a lower tax base. It's nice to see the private sector leading the way in job creation - although you should probably check back here a month from now, and see whether we've still gained all those jobs.

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