Jersey City’s Unemployment Rate Rises Again in January
By Jon Whiten • Mar 20th, 2009 • Category: Blog, News
According to preliminary data released by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, Jersey City’s unemployment rate was 8.6 percent in January, up from 8 percent in December 2008. That is the highest unemployment rate the city has seen in five and a half years — you’d have to go back to July 2003 (9.3 percent) for the last time the rate was this high — and a nearly 3-percent jump from January 2008, when the rate was 5.8 percent.
Jersey City’s rate is slightly higher than the national average, which was 7.6 percent in January.
Even with the unemployment rate rising, Jersey City still is in better shape than many cities around the state that are feeling the force of this recession.
In January, Trenton led the way with a 17.5 percent unemployment rate, while 23 other municipalities with populations greater than 25,000 had double-digit unemployment rates.
We mentioned this when we brought you the December 2008 unemployment figures, but it bears repeating. The unemployment rate is a relatively narrow metric, counting as unemployed only those who “do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work.” As the recession drags on, some people may well give up looking for work after exhaustive searching, and those individuals are not included in the rate.
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Jon Whiten is the founding editor of the Jersey City Independent; he now works for a public-policy nonprofit in Trenton.
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