Unemployment Drops Again (Pittsburgh, California: for rent, month to, employment)

[Blackbeauty212]

Pittsburgh unemployment rate declines in September - Pittsburgh Business Times

[Huckleberry3911948]

i am glad it is happening there. i keep hearing heralds in the streets crying "the recovery is here". but the "for rent" signs keep obscuring the view.

[bradjl2009]

Originally Posted by Huckleberry3911948

i am glad it is happening there. i keep hearing heralds in the streets crying "the recovery is here". but the "for rent" signs keep obscuring the view.

I've heard it's awful in California. I think many other problems in your state will keep the recovery from happening there as it has here.

[bradjl2009]

Another thing, I wish the papers would go year over year changes in jobs instead of month over month because with seasonal changes, there are always some months that jobs will drop over the previous month but it's perfectly normal for them to do so.

[BrianTH]

The year over year numbers are sort of stunning--a big gain in labor force, and an even bigger gain in employment, hence a big drop in the unemployment rate.

The story that is telling about the Pittsburgh economy is remarkable in many ways, assuming you believe it.

Edit: incidentally, the seasonal adjustments are supposed to make month to month comparisons more meaningful, but that is an imprecise science at best.

[BrianTH]

Just to put some numbers on that post (these are not seasonally adjusted, since I am doing year over year):

Labor force went from 1212400 to 1225200, which is +1.06%.

Employment went from 1125000 to 1142200, which is +1.53%.

Those annual percentage changes may seem small, but they are actually quite large, particularly for Pittsburgh, and particularly in the current economic climate.

Unemployment went down from 87400 to 83000, and the unemployment rate went from 7.2 to 6.8 (that's the end result of the gap in the growth rate of employment over labor force). Note again these rate numbers vary from the more widely-reported numbers because they are not seasonally adjusted.

[squarian]

The BLS figures for Allegheny County (which IMO better reflects Pittsburgh as an economic unit, the "economic metro") are interesting:

2006Jul 640644(E) 609970(E) 30674(E) 4.8(E)
2007 Jul 644333(E) 616482(E) 27851(E) 4.3(E)
2008 Jul 654951(E) 621927(E) 33024(E) 5.0(E)
2009Jul 650422(E) 603570(E) 46852(E) 7.2(E)
2010Jul 646991(E) 596373(E) 50618(E) 7.8(E)
2011Jul 650387 602692 47695 7.3

An increase of 1.5% in workforce, a decline of 1.2% in employment, and a 55% increase in unemployment, Jul 06-Jul 11.

[BrianTH]

A metropolitan area is defined in part as a common commuting region, so there is some sense to looking at it as a unit of analysis for employment purposes.

But in any event, I believe the state numbers come from the same source as the BLS numbers, and they are available for the County in September. Again, not seasonally adjusted, year over year:

Labor force: 637,000 to 643,700 +1.05%
Employment: 591,300 to 600,300 +1.52%
Unemployment: 45,700 to 43,400
Unemployment rate: 7.2 to 6.7

So pretty close to the metro numbers.

[BrianTH]

Here is the September series for Allegheny County going back to 2001 (labor force, employment, unemployment, unemployment rate):


2001 Sep 641568 614687 26881 4.2
2002 Sep 645730 613518 32212 5.0
2003 Sep 633270 599877 33393 5.3
2004 Sep 630087 599650 30437 4.8
2005 Sep 630464 601224 29240 4.6
2006 Sep 630057 605002 25055 4.0
2007 Sep 635217 610690 24527 3.9
2008 Sep 645598 615265 30333 4.7
2009 Sep 634701 590926 43775 6.9
2010 Sep 637032 591302 45730 7.2

Edit: Same basic deal as July. Unemployment bottomed in 2007, the labor force and employment peaked in 2008, and the recession finally got here in 2009. The big difference is that by fall of 2010, we were starting to see more of a jobs recovery than in summer of 2010, but the labor force was also growing again.

[WILWRadio]

Nice to see this. The economy here in the Kansas City area is the pits to say the least. It's good to see some encouraging news on the job front from an area where I'd like to be.