Broken record: another good monthly jobs report for PGH (Philadelphia: unemployment rate, construction)

[BrianTH]

There is usually a substantial seasonal decline in jobs between November and December in our region. But not this time: we were actually up 500 jobs month over month:

Bureau of Labor Statistics Data

So year over year we went from plus 22,500 in November to plus 26,700 in December. Over the pre-recession peak (back in 2007 for these months), we went from plus 2,800 to plus 7,300.

By sector . . .

http://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.pa_pittsburgh_msa.htm

. . . mining and logging held steady as a small but high-percentage (8.5% yoy) contributor. But construction is the real story--although it experienced its normal seasonal decline, it was up 6% over last December. Note the construction sector is around six times the size of the mining and logging sector, so 6% growth in construction contributes a lot more to the bottom line than 8.5% in mining and logging.

Other high-percentage yoy gainers included trade/transportation/utilities (3.5%), financial (2.5%), professional and business services (1.9%), and education and health (4.3%). Government was down (as usual) 0.8%, and information was also down (also as usual) 1.1%.

So basically this is the same nicely-diversified recovery we have been seeing for a while, but with construction coming on very strong recently--and construction still has a lot more room to get back to peak:

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/SMU42...a_tool=XGtable

[Craziaskowboi]

Here de year-over-year graph!

[Blackbeauty212]

Let see how PAT issue F*cks all this up!

[BrianTH]

Pretty amazing that we had both a relatively mild recession and relatively strong recovery.

And personally, I think we are starting to see the feedback effects from job-seeking migrants.

[bradjl2009]

Not to discount how strong construction did locally, but it was also strong across the country because of how unusually warm much of the nation was last month. I wonder how it would have done if December was cold. Blackbeauty is also right to mention how the pat issue may make a mess of the jobs issue in 2012. A lack of good transportation for employees to get to their job may turn off businesses from coming here.

[BrianTH]

Although December weather might have contributed, we've been experiencing high yoy construction job growth each month starting in June.

[BrianTH]

Unemployment rate fell as well:

Region's jobless rate fell in December

Report linked here:

Monthly News Releases

Labor force is at 1,227,600 (NSA), up from 1,208,500 the prior December (+19,100). This is consistent with the theory that Pittsburgh has been attracting/retaining more job-seekers as it has outperformed during the recession/recovery.

Incidentally, a large chunk of that yoy labor gain was in Allegheny County (+10,400), and in fact a decent chunk was in the City of Pittsburgh (+2,500). In percentage terms, the MSA labor force was +1.58%, Allegheny County +1.65%, City of Pittsburgh +1.64%. So the core area isn't being left behind by this measure, and in fact is leading a bit.

[Hopes]

Doesn't it sort of blow your mind that Butler County has the lowest unemployment rate in the state?

Region's jobless rate falls to 6.9 percent - Pittsburgh Business Times

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Hopes

Doesn't it sort of blow your mind that Butler County has the lowest unemployment rate in the state?

Lowest in the Pittsburgh Metro--Centre is lowest in the state at 5.1% (PDF):

http://www.paworkstats.state.pa.us/admin/gsipub/htmlarea/uploads/county_unemployment_map.pdf (broken link)

[bradjl2009]

You can have your "Texas Miracle" Rick Perry. The real story is the Pittsburgh miracle lol .