New Jersey Real Estate Report

From the APP:

NJ jobs: Unemployment rate drops to record low 3.5%, leaving employers in a pinch

While help-wanted signs abound, employers say they are scrambling to fill jobs in an exercise that could get more difficult as the giant Baby Boomer generation continues to reach retirement age.

“We’re very busy, and some people retired out,” said Mark Curcio, president of Encur, a Keyport manufacturer that has struggled to keep up with some of its shipping commitments.

The monthly jobs report released Thursday showed New Jersey added 10,200 jobs, bouncing back from May, when it lost 7,000 jobs. It helped the jobless rate reach a milestone, dropping below its previous low of 3.6% in June 2000.

New Jersey’s economy had struggled since then, through the Great Recession, superstorm Sandy and millennials moving to the cities. But it has shown resilience in recent years.

From May 2018 to May 2019, the state ranked 24th in job growth nationwide. And its economy is expected to remain stronger than its neighbors during the next six months, a report by the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank said. 

The improved labor market is tipping the balance of power in favor of workers, namely, millennials and Generation Z that were raised in the digital age and are putting their stamps on the economy, according to a new report by Rutgers University economists James W. Hughes and Joseph J. Seneca.

It leaves New Jersey on the cusp of a new era that is changing the state’s landscape from one that was largely suburban to one that looks more like a city: high-density housing; vibrant downtowns; and restaurants and bars that are in walking distance, they said.

From the Press of Atlantic City:

NJ wage support complicated, less effective than stronger economy

New Jersey lawmakers have hobbled the state economy with the worst business tax and regulatory climate in America. That costs residents a lot of prosperity and quality of life.

Rather than address the government actions that keep New Jersey lagging behind the national economy, they choose more spending, more debt and making a show of trying to help some. Raising the state’s minimum wage eventually to $15 is one of these attempts to provide symptomatic relief instead of working toward a cure.

This month marks the start of the complex multiyear process, with the minimum for nearly a quarter million workers rising to $10 an hour from $8.85. Even they won’t see $15 an hour until 2024. And the burdens of paying the higher wages will begin later for many, including taxpayers, as lawmakers try to avoid or delay harms to the state’s economy.

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Since the wage boost is expected to eliminate jobs for young and inexperienced workers, a bill in the state Senate would give employers of teenagers as much as $10 million in tax credits to offset their higher wages and payroll taxes. That would mean a loss of some corporate and gross business income taxes, which presumably would be made up by other taxpayers since state spending only increases.

Under the just-enacted state budget, taxpayers are already paying $65 million to cover the increased costs of some employers, including nursing homes, home health and personal care firms, providers of child care to Work First New Jersey recipients, and providers of services to the disabled.

Taxpayers actually will pay twice, since one of the ways businesses will adjust to state-mandated higher wages is by raising prices. Another will be to cut employees.

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These efforts to mitigate the negative effects of government-mandated higher wages raise a couple of questions. Might it have been easier, more direct and more effective to provide a suitable earned-income tax credit (or increase for those already getting that) to heads of households in minimum wage jobs?

Better still, New Jersey could reduce its tax and regulatory burden, unleashing years of strong economic growth that would create more jobs and compel employers to pay more to fill them. That would put more low-wage workers on the path to the middle class.

Instead, starting-wage jobs will pay better but be scarcer, hurting some of the people lawmakers are trying to help. State officials should at least take another NJBIA suggestion and study the impact of their wage-mandate regime. In its complexity and conflicting effects, it may be more of a drag on New Jersey’s economy and residents than they realize.

From the Star Ledger:

Wages up, unemployment down in N.J.’s largest counties as economic recovery continues

Wages in Mercer County rose by 7.1 percent last year, the largest increase in New Jersey and one of the biggest in the country, according to a report released Friday.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its numbers for the state’s 15 largest counties, defined as those with at least 75,000 workers on average. The report came out on the same day that the bureau said that 224,000 new jobs were created nationwide last month.

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Wages increased in 14 of the 15 large counties, and employment rose in 12 of the 15, continuing an economic trend that began under President Barack Obama and kept going under his successor, President Trump. The 15 counties account for 91 percent of the state’s jobs.

The increase in wages in Mercer County in the fourth quarter of 2018 compared with the same period a year ago was the 13th biggest boost among the 349 largest counties nationwide.

The average percentage increase in employment in New Jersey in December 2018 compared with December 2017 was 0.8 percent and the average boost in wages was 2.7 percent. That trailed the national averages of 1.5 percent and 3.2 percent respectively.