The rate of private sector job creation in major upstate metro areas remained very low during the 12-month period ending in March, according to the latest state labor statistics.
New York State as a whole gained 133,800 private jobs on a year-over-year basis—a 1.7 percent growth rate compared to the estimated national employment increase of 2.3 percent during the same period.
New York City alone accounted for 96,300 added jobs, and net gains totaling 38,900 jobs were estimated for Long Island and lower Hudson Valley suburbs.
As shown below, among the biggest upstate metros, Buffalo’s employment gain of 2,600 jobs, a mediocre growth rate of 0.6 percent, was the largest gain. Rochester, meanwhile, actually experienced a drop in private employment. (Due to differences in federal and state employment estimation methodologies, the statewide net change and the sum of the metro area changes do not exactly match.)
About the Author
You may also like
Big bucks, no impact
The billions of dollars funneled from New York's treasury to movie and TV producers had no statistically significant impact on the industry's employment in the Empire State through 2017, according to a new multi-state study of such tax incentives. Read More
NY job gains remain below US rate
Today's jobs report from the state Labor Department carried the usual "Jobs at All-Time High" headline (when the "high" disappears, think recession).
Also as usual, the April numbers showed a wide regional variation in private job creation rates around the state—and New York as a whole continues to trail employment growth nationally. Read More
Jobs grow further apart in NY
Newly revised data from the state Labor Department indicate New York's regional economic performance gap has grown larger in the last year.
On a year-to-year basis, the state gained 103,900 private-sector jobs in January—a growth rate of 1.3 percent at a time when the U.S. as a whole was growing by 2.1 percent, according to the state Labor Department's monthly jobs report. Read More
Lights, camera, cash in!
The collapse of New York's effort to lure Amazon's "second headquarters" to Queens with more than $3 billion in city and state incentives sheds fresh light on a bigger, ongoing corporate subsidy—New York State's Film and TV Production Credit. Read More
Cuomo’s misleading labor stats
When it comes to rhetorical use of upstate New York unemployment statistics, Governor Cuomo is consistent. Unfortunately, he's consistently misleading.
The latest example came at today's ribbon-cutting today for the new 136,000-square-foot Expo Center at the state fairgrounds in Syracuse, where Cuomo delivered a roughly 25-minute stream-of-consciousness riff that focused on what he portrayed as an economic turnaround in upstate and the Syracuse area. Read More
NY’s Labor Day “arrows”
Governor Cuomo frequently asserts that "the arrows are pointed in the right direction" for the upstate New York economy, thanks to state policy changes under his leadership.
But approaching the sixth Labor Day of Cuomo's tenure, the latest job statistics continued to tell a different story. Read More
DiNapoli confirms: upstate sluggish
State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli has just issued a report confirming what employment statistics have been showing: upstate New York's economy has lagged behind the nation and downstate regions for years now. Read More
Upstate job gains stay near nil
At the mid-summer mark, the private sector in upstate New York was still struggling to produce net employment gains, according to the state Labor Department's latest monthly report. Read More