The Buffalo Niagara job market is doing better than first though, but it’s far from red hot.

The local job market enjoyed its strongest job growth in three months during January, as a surge in hiring at local restaurants and hotels offset a steep seasonal slump in construction jobs, the state Labor Department said Thursday.

And revised data issued by the state showed that, rather than falling into decline late last summer, the local job market continued to slowly strengthen during the second half of last year. As a result, job growth during 2012 ran at an annual pace of almost 0.7 percent, nearly three times the 0.2 percent initially reported, but still less than half of the increase nationally.

The improved job numbers weren’t a surprise. Local economists had predicted that the job figures from last year would be revised upward once more extensive tax data was available, and that’s exactly what happened. Instead of adding just 1,300 jobs during the course of 2012, as initially reported, the region added 3,600 – almost three times as many….

Read article here