What did the NJ unemployment picture look like?
New Jersey’s economy sizzled in March as the state’s unemployment rate, already the lowest in a decade, plunged even farther, while payrolls surged by the largest amount in 18 months. Unemployment fell from 4.1 percent to 3.7 percent, the biggest monthly decline in 15 years, the state Department of Labor reported yesterday. The results surprised some analysts. “That’s sort of extraordinary,” said James Hughes, dean of the Edward Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. “That rate would have been difficult to imagine even a year ago. The state economy is speeding along.” Sources: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-61567427.
New Jersey’s unemployment rate climbed to its highest level in 15 years last month, triggering worries that the drain on the state’s unemployment insurance fund will prompt payroll tax increases. The 7.1 percent unemployment rate was a full point increase over the rate in November, and just barely under the national average of 7.2 percent, Gov. Jon Corzine and State Labor Commissioner David Socolow announced today. Corzine, who called the latest numbers “disappointing,” used the figures to pitch for the state’s share of federal aid to shore up the unemployment insurance fund, whose surplus is running dangerously low. “The recession is deepening both here in New Jersey and across the country,” Corzine said at a State House press conference today. “It gives meaning to the words that the President (Barack Obama) said (Tuesday), that the challenges we face are real.” Socolow attributed the losses to job reductions in the professional and business services, construction and manufacturing
