New Jersey sees modest job gains in April, unemployment rate exceeds national rate
(The Center Square) – New Jersey added 3,900 jobs in April, and the state’s unemployment rate dropped by a 0.1 percentage point to 7.5%, the New Jersey Department of Labor & Workforce Development announced.
The majority of the job gains, 3,000, were in the leisure and hospitality sector.
“Our experience mirrored that of the nation, which also saw a small increase more than accounted for by leisure and hospitality,” Charles Steindel, New Jersey’s former chief economist and a resident scholar at Ramapo College’s Anisfield School of Business, said in an analysis for the Garden State Initiative.
“A gain in jobs may be seen as better than a drop, but at April’s rate it would take another 7 years to get New Jersey’s job count back to its February 2020 peak,” Steindel added. “While the one modestly bright spot was leisure and hospitality, which has gained more than 18,000 jobs since December, the sector is still more than 90,000 short of its peak.”
The move comes amid a national debate about whether the extra $300 in unemployment benefits incentivizes people to stay home instead of returning to work. Gov. Phil Murphy has said the state has “no plans to curtail the $300” in New Jersey.
“Undoubtedly this has been an element at work, but it’s also the case that leisure and hospitality, the one sector that has shown recent strength, mainly offers fairly low-paying positions,” Steindel said. “Hopefully, the softness in April will turn out to be transitory — given the surge in income and spending, and many surveys showing business activity picking up, that seems plausible.”
Nationally, the unemployment rate was 6.1%. Officials said the Garden State has recovered 388,400 jobs — or about 54% of the number — lost in March and April 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Disclaimer: This content is distributed by The Center Square
