Region’s jobless rate increased to 7.6% in January

The unemployment rate in Pittsburgh jumped to 7.6% in January, the second monthly increase since the COVID-19 pandemic hit last spring.

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in the seven-county Pittsburgh region rose from 6.8% in December to 7.6% in January, according to the most recent data released Thursday from the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry.

Compared with this time last year, the unemployment rate is up nearly 3 percentage points from 4.7% in January 2020.

“Clearly we’re still seeing effects from the pandemic,” said Lauren Riegel, a business analyst with the department, but the month-over-month increase is likely a “delayed reaction” to additional health and safety restrictions put in place in December to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, which led to more shutdowns and job losses.

“We did show a job drop in December and rebound in January,” Ms. Riegel said.

The Pittsburgh region gained 11,500 jobs in January, according to the most recent data.

Some sectors saw seasonal declines that month, including education and health services, which shed 4,000 positions, and government, which was down 3,300 jobs. The trade, transportation and utilities sector saw the greatest decline of 5,200 jobs after the holiday shopping and shipping season ended.

Compared with the same period last year, jobs in the Pittsburgh region were down 7.5%. That amounts to about 90,000 fewer jobs.

Statewide, Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate rose 0.2 percentage points to 7.3% in January, while total non-farm jobs were up 35,700.

“We showed some initial really strong rebound months,” Ms. Riegel said. “Generally speaking, aside from the December dip, jobs have kind of been slowly inching back up.”

At the beginning of the pandemic, when Pittsburgh’s unemployment rate peaked at 17% and Pennsylvania’s at 16.2%, the state had practically erased 30 years of job growth, Ms. Riegel said, based on analysis of historical data.

Total non-farm jobs went back to levels comparable to those in the late 1980s and early ’90s.

The state has worked its way back to 2010 levels, when Pennsylvania was digging itself out of another economic downturn. Taking the last recession out of the equation, Ms. Riegel estimated Pennsylvania had now reached 2005 job levels.

In January, Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh moved in the opposite direction of national trends. While the state and the region posted an increase in the unemployment rate, the national rate dropped from 6.7% to 6.3%.