Westchester Job Market Update

BY JOHN GOLDEN

(Westchester County Business Journal)

Westchester County and the lower Hudson Valley showed modest gains in the number of private-sector jobs in July compared with a year ago, even as unemployment rates in the region rose slightly from June, the state Department of Labor recently reported.

The state’s seasonally adjusted private-sector job count increased by 5,500 from June, a 0.1 percent increase that matched the national job-growth rate in the private sector, said Nancy Dunphy, deputy commissioner for employment security in Albany.

Private-sector jobs in the state totaled 7,248,800, an increase of 87,500 jobs or 1.2 percent from July 2006. The state’s growth rate for that period lagged slightly behind the national rate in July of 1.4 percent.

Nonfarm jobs overall in the state rose to 8,708,700 in the same one-year period, an increase of 95,600 jobs or 1.1 percent. Nationally, the number of nonfarm jobs in July increased by 1.3 percent from July 2006.

From July of the previous year, the Putnam-Rockland-Westchester market expanded to 587,500 nonfarm jobs, an increase of 6,400 jobs, or 1.1 percent. Of that total, private-sector jobs increased by 5,300, or 1.1 percent.

The July count of nonfarm jobs in the Poughkeepsie-Newburgh-Middletown market was 257,300, an increase of 2,700 jobs, or 1.1 percent, from July 2006. Private-sector jobs increased by 2,100, or 1 percent.

The Kingston employment market had the highest percentage increase in July from the previous year, 2.2 percent, with 65,800 nonfarm jobs reported there. Private-sector jobs in the area increased by 1,300, or 2.6 percent.