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Employment in New Jersey’s private sector fell by 3,600 jobs in April, producing a net loss of 1,000 jobs so far this year, according to data released today by the State in its monthly employment report.

“After lagging the nation in its rate of private-sector job growth for three years, New Jersey is off to a difficult start in 2007,” said NJBIA President Philip Kirschner. “In the first four months of this year, we’ve actually lost 1,000 private-sector jobs. While the nation as a whole has been creating jobs, New Jersey has been moving backwards.”

In releasing its monthly employment report today, the NJ Department of Labor and Workforce Development (LWD) said the state lost 3,600 jobs in April, noting that all of the loss was in the private sector. Government employment was flat in April, but has grown by 1,300 jobs so far this year.

Although private sector employment grew in the months of January (+5,300) and March (+3,900), these gains were more than offset by losses in February (-6,600) and April (-3,600).

Economists have predicted that New Jersey will experience very slow job growth in 2007, with overall employment (including government and the private sector) growing by less than 1 percent.

The loss of jobs in the State’s private sector continues a pattern of weak and inconsistent employment growth that has characterized this expansion.

Since the expansion got underway in March 2003, New Jersey’s private-sector employers have produced a net increase of about 21,100 jobs a year (See Chart).  In the two previous expansions of the 1980s and 1990s, New Jersey produced about 70,000 new private-sector jobs annually. (See March 2007 Employment Watch)

In the nation as a whole, private-sector employment has been growing twice as fast as it has been here in New Jersey.

Looking at the performance of the state’s three major economic sectors so far this year, construction has added 900 jobs (+0.5 percent), and the dominant service sector has added 1,300 jobs (+0.2 percent). However, manufacturing has lost 3,000 jobs (-0.9%), with 2,000 of those job losses coming in April.

The statewide unemployment rate was unchanged in April at 4.3 percent, remaining below the national rate, which was 4.5 percent.

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