Lehigh Valley’s jobless rate continued drop in September
The unemployment rate in the Lehigh Valley continues to drop, as the state’s positive coronavirus cases have climbed since around the start of the fall.
The Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry said Tuesday that September’s seasonally adjusted rate hit 7.7% — down 2.7 percentage points from August — and 9 percentage points below April’s estimate of 16.7%, when the rate spiked to a nearly 40-year high as the state was shut down.
The state pegged the September number at 33,300 people unemployed by actively seeking work, down from April’s number of 74,000 people out of work in the four-court region that includes Carbon, Lehigh, Northampton and Warren County, New Jersey.
The Labor Department also said seasonally adjusted nonfarm jobs rose 0.7% during the month, or 2,440, to 356,900. Compared with a year ago, jobs are down 6.4%, or 24,400. By seasonally adjusted, the government takes into account hiring fluctuations such as holidays.
While the overall rate bodes well for the Valley’s recovery, with the region clawing back an estimated 55.5% of lost jobs, the decline in unemployment has occurred as the labor force has tumbled, according to Steven Zellers, a Labor Department analyst. Some11,000 people have left the labor force since April, to 432,600.
Zellers said the shrinking labor force has been occurring throughout the state, begun when Pennsylvania entered a lockdown early in the pandemic. That move forced people into either taking early retirement and/or leaving their jobs to care for stay-at-home schoolchildren.
“It’s tied to COVID,” Zellers said. “The more we can open up the local economies and stay open, the better we’re going to be.”
Six of 10 supersectors in the Lehigh Valley either added jobs or remained unchanged from August. Seasonal increases in education, including school busing, helped drive rising employment in government, education and health services, along with trade, transportation and utilities, the state said.
Education and health services was the only major area showing growth over the year, increasing 2,300 jobs since September 2019.
Elsewhere, unemployment compensation claims are averaging 24,562, about half of what they were at the height of the pandemic in May, according to Gina Kormanik, business relations director for Workforce Board Lehigh Valley.
Kormanik said the Valley also saw 671 initial unemployment claims for the most recent weekly period ending Oct. 22. That’s down significantly from early April, whenthe two counties saw 10,113 initial claims, according to state data.
While total nonfarm payrolls rose by 3,500 jobs in August, the number has dipped by 24,200 since September 2019.
“Looking at the data, I’m glad to see many of the lost jobs being recovered,” local economist Kamran Afshar said. “However, it is obviously sad to see that we are still 24,000 jobs below last year’s level.”
Officials: Jobs are out there
New jobs have opened amid the coronavirus pandemic, particularly for seasonal work. E-commerce giant Amazon.com announced Tuesday it is planning to hire 500 temporary workers in its Lehigh Valley locations. That follows recent news of seasonal warehouse hiring at Radial, XPO and elsewhere.
Other jobs are out there, too: Officials with Lehigh Valley CareerLink and Lehigh Valley Workforce Board said during a video news conference last week that its goal is to connect workers with more than 6,000 job openings.
The jobs organization has rolled out a new initiative called “Employer Wednesdays,” which aims to highlight one business, as well as provide “Career Pathways” that lay out training and promotion opportunities. Employer Wednesdays also includes on-site events. Find out more at careerlinklehighvalley. org, or call 610-437-5627.
Nancy Dischinat, Workforce Board executive director, said Tuesday that nearly 28,000 people in Lehigh and Northampton counties are looking for work, but employers seeking to hire are not besieged with applicants. The talent pool should increase later this year, she said, when unemployment benefits are projected to end.
The September jobs report comes as the region and state continue to grapple with a resurgence in COVID-19.
OnTuesday, the state reported 2,751 cases, breaking its daily COVID-19 record, and bringing the total to 198,446. The Lehigh Valley saw 82 new cases but no deaths. While the state’s daily increases are comparable with April’s daily rates, officials believe more information about the virus will lead to better medical care, despite the arrival of colder weather that typically impacts the flu season.
The Valley is faring better than Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate, 8.1%, and slightly below the national rate of 7.9%. The region has the 10th lowest rate among18 areas statewide, with the lowest State College (5%) and the highest in East Stroudsburg area (10.1%).