The jobs hole created by Governor Murphy’s COVID-19 lockdown remains dauntingly gigantic.
On Thursday, the State of New Jersey released its latest monthly jobs report and the Garden State Initiative (GSI) broke it down. The state added thousands of new jobs in June, but the market is still replacing positions that were destroyed by coronavirus government restrictions and the related fallout.
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“The state’s job count rose by 16,600 in June. Since January, the state has added nearly 70,000 jobs,” explained Dr. Charles Steindel, former Chief Economist of the State of New Jersey. “With the exception of last year’s surge in jobs with the end of the shut-down, this is the largest increase in payrolls over a five-month period in nearly 40 years. However, the number of jobs in New Jersey in June was still more than 300,000 less than the February 2020 peak. Even if the recent pace were maintained it would take nearly two years—until mid-2023—for New Jersey’s job number to hit a new peak.”
“New Jersey’s unemployment rate increased from 7.2% in May to 7.3% in June, as an increase in the labor force outstripped a rise in the number of New Jersey residents at work,” added Steindel. “The rate remains well above the national average of 5.9%.”
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