Region’s labor picture darkened during July
The region’s labor picture continued to darken in July as jobless rates rose once more, spurred again by the nationwide economic recession. Job losses were the main cause of the increase, according to state data. The Pittsburgh region has lost 32,800 jobs since July 2008, state data showed.
Fayette County’s unemployment rate in July neared double-digits, reaching 9.8 percent, up from June’s 9.4 percent. Fayette County’s jobless rate in July 2008 was 6.7 percent.
Unemployment rates in Greene County were 8.1 percent in July, 8 percent in June and 5.9 percent in July 2008.
Washington County’s jobless rates remained unchanged: 8.1 percent in June and July. Its rate was 5.3 percent in July 2008.
In terms of ranking among all 67 counties in Pennsylvania, Fayette County had the 49th highest jobless rate while Greene and Washington counties each had the 20th highest rate. The lowest jobless rate in July in the state was 5.8 percent in Centre County and the highest was 17.7 percent in Cameron County.
Meanwhile, Lauren Nimal, Pennsylvania Department of Labor Center for Workforce Information and Analysis industry and business analyst, said that in July, unemployment in the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area (PMSA) rose to 7.7 percent, up from 7.6 percent in June and 5.1 percent in July 2008. Counties in the PMSA are Fayette, Washington, Westmoreland, Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver and Butler.
Nimal said it was the highest rate for the PMSA since November 1986.
However, the PMSA jobless rate in July was less than Pennsylvania’s rate of 8.5 percent and the national rate of 9.4 percent.
Nimal said resident employment fell 6,700 to 1,123,600, its lowest point since June 1996, while the unemployment count rose for the 15th consecutive month to 93,700. The PMSA’s unemployment rate rose 2.6 percentage points over the year, she added.
The PMSA held the sixth lowest unemployment rate among Pennsylvania’s 14 metropolitan statistical areas. County rates in the PMSA ranged from 7.1 percent in Allegheny County to 9.8 percent in Armstrong and Fayette counties.
According to data adjusted for normal seasonal changes in the labor force, the PMSA lost 700 jobs in July to a total of 1,119,500 jobs. This was the 11th consecutive monthly drop, but the smallest in that time. Nimal said that each month since November 2008, jobs in the PMSA have “shown increasingly deeper over-the-year decreases.”
In specific areas, Nimal said goods-producing companies in the PMSA added 100 jobs in July.
She said construction gained 900 jobs, but that increase was countered when manufacturing cut 800 jobs.
Nimal reported the majority of the decline in manufacturing jobs was from durable goods firms, which fell 700 jobs in July for a total of 64,600.
Service jobs also fell 14,900 in July to a total of 968,100 in the PMSA. “The only service-providing supersector to gain jobs was other services, up 400 to 53,400,” Nimal said.
Other services include such things as equipment and machinery repairing, promoting or administering religious activities, grant making, advocacy, and providing dry cleaning and laundry services, personal care services, death care services, pet care services, photofinishing services, temporary parking services and dating services.
Employment in trade, transportation and utilities jobs declined 3,200, but that was an expected change, Nimal said. “The majority of the decrease was a seasonal decline in transportation and warehousing (includes school buses), which dipped 2,700 as the school year came to a close. Educational services and local government educational services also showed seasonal decreases,” she said.
Finally, Nimal said that July was the ninth consecutive month that both goods producers and service providers showed over-the-year losses. Goods producing jobs were 14,000 below last July’s level while service providers were down 18,800 jobs.
Since July 2008, manufacturing firms cut 10,800 jobs (12.2 percent).
Education and health services was still showing over-the-year growth in July (up 2,800 jobs), but only about half of what it had been in January 2009 (up 5,700 jobs from January 2008), Nimal reported.