Review / Pittsburgh Tribune – Review – Area jobs 'picture getting better'
Area jobs ‘picture getting better’
0 Comments | Tribune – Review / Pittsburgh Tribune – Review, Jul 27, 2010 | by Joe Napsha
The Pittsburgh region continued to show signs of economic recovery in June, with employers adding jobs for the third consecutive month and the unemployment rate falling by 0.3 percentage point, the state said.
Moderate gains in jobs over the past three months “tells us that the picture is getting better,” said Robert Dye, vice president and senior economist at PNC Financial Services Group Inc., Downtown. The region has benefited from the jobs created by the natural gas industry as it explores the Marcellus shale reserves, Dye said Monday.
A survey of employers in the seven-county region showed a gain of 7,700 jobs in June, the state said.
The region’s unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent in June from 8.6 percent in May, according to the state’s Center for Workforce Information and Analysis. The jobless rate was still 0.9 percentage point higher than June 2009, when the rate was 7.4 percent, the state said.
Dye predicted that the Pittsburgh region will have “a relatively strong economic performance through the remainder of the year,” but said he does not want to get overly excited about the economy because “I expect to see some signs of turbulence.”
The region covers Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Washington and Westmoreland counties.
The state’s survey of employers showed that total jobs in the region reached 1.137 million, the highest total this year and almost 5,000 more than in June 2009. It’s the first time this year that the number of jobs at employers in the region was higher than the same month in 2009.
A separate survey of households in the region showed that total employment in June was 1.126 million, or 9,300 fewer than a year ago, state figures show. Total unemployment in the region was 102,100, which was 11,700 higher than in June 2009.
“This recovery has been painfully slow,” said Frank Gamrat, an economist and senior research associate at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy, a Castle Shannon thinktank.
One bright spot in the economic recovery was the addition of 7,700 jobs by employers, said Harold D. Miller, president of Future Strategies LLC., a Downtown economic consulting firm.
Miller said private-sector employers added 9,300 jobs in June, but losses in government jobs, most likely from the Census Bureau, reduced the net increase to 7,700. The federal government alone cut 1,400 jobs in June, Miller said.
“It’s starting to look better
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