NJ economic growth lags

From the Asbury Park Press:

N.J.’s economic growth trails nation’s

New Jersey’s economy created 20,500 jobs in 2006, less than half the number created in 2005 and well off the pace of the rest of the country.

The latest unemployment report from the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development supports the business community’s argument that the Garden State’s high costs are getting in the way of a healthy economy.

“We are pleased to close the books on 2006,” said Joseph J. Seneca, an economist and professor at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. “It was an extremely lackluster year.”

Seneca was among the speakers at a conference Wednesday at Rutgers about the economy and the real estate market.

They said New Jersey’s job market is growing slowly and producing many low-paying jobs, and the consequences are steep. Many residents, for example, can’t afford to buy their first home.

Experts cautioned that the unemployment survey released Wednesday was preliminary. A more comprehensive jobs report is scheduled to be released next month, and it could change the final jobs tally substantially.

But the unemployment figures continued a trend that Rutgers economists have noted for more than a year. The number of jobs created in 2006 fell short of the 46,000 created in 2005. And the state’s job market grew less than half as fast as the nation’s.

December’s report told a similar story. The state created 2,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate dropped to 4.2 percent from 4.5 percent in November, according to the labor department.

The nation created 167,000 jobs last month. Since New Jersey represents 3 percent of the labor force, the state should have created 5,010 jobs.

Nancy Mantell, director of the Rutgers Economic Advisory Service, predicted job growth would slow even more this year.

Compounding the problem: Only two of 13 sectors — retail trade and a sector called “other services” — performed better in New Jersey than the rest of the nation, and those jobs typically are low-paying, Mantell said.

“The problem here . . . is that most of the really fast-growing industries are at the lower end of the wage spectrum, and that could be a problem for New Jersey in the future,” Mantell said.