New Jersey limped out of the economic starting gate in the first quarter of 2007, adding just 3,500 private-sector jobs.  This continues a pattern of weak job growth that has been typical of this economic expansion.
                                        
In 2006, New Jersey’s private-sector employers added more than 19,600 jobs in the first quarter, five times the number created so far this year. At the current rate of employment growth, New Jersey can expect to add only 14,000 private-sector jobs this year, a gain of less than one half of 1 percent.

Clearly, New Jersey has yet to emerge from its employment doldrums.  Over the last four years (March 2003-March 2007), New Jersey has seen a net increase of 90,600 private-sector jobs. That works out to an average of 22,650 new jobs a year and an employment growth rate of less than 1 percent. Private-sector employment in the nation as a whole is growing twice as fast. (See March 2007 Employment Watch.)

Private-sector employment in New Jersey is also growing much more slowly that it did in the expansions of the 1980s and 1990s, when the State produced about 70,000 private-sector jobs annually.
                  
The month-to-month changes in employment were erratic in the first quarter. The State’s private-sector employers added 5,300 jobs in January, lost 6,600 jobs in February, then gained back 4,800 in March. These ups and downs left the State with a net gain of 3,500.

Looking at the performance of the three major economic sectors, construction gained 500 jobs (+0.3 percent), the dominant service sector gained 3,800 jobs (+0.13 percent), and manufacturing lost 600 jobs in the first quarter (-0.2 percent)

Meanwhile, the State’s unemployment rate moved up to 4.3 percent in March from 4.1 percent the month before, which was the low point for this expansion.

 “Employment growth in New Jersey has been weak for several years, and, unfortunately, we have seen a continuation of this trend in the first quarter.  Hopefully, hiring will pick up in the months ahead,” said NJBIA President Philip Kirschner.

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